BV  2400  .B34  1882 
Bainbridge,  William  F.  b 

1843.  . 

Around  the  world  tour  ot 


I'KOIl  STAM   MISSIONS. 

Ajiimh   111  llui'-A  KrilisliBOtniuiiC 
DiilduD  Moi  iXMriMMduliFOmasO 

l>l,f\  tlfl\(./fFritfOA  s 

Ptott  \rii/it    'I      M      I     IMmmr/tf/i 
J{oimi/i( tff/i    Umid]   /fi/ir/ii  \n,ul<llii  1/ 
oi'it/i/i/f/im^  ^^BUZU  Ptu/an 


^^Mispujefi^ 


AROUND  THE  WORLD  TOUR 


CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS, 


A  UJSriVEESAL  SURVEY. 


BY 

WILLIAM    f/bAINBRIDGE 


12Eit!j  iHapg  of  Pre&ailing  Eelfgions  anti  all  ileatimg 

M'i^^i^^'^  Stations* 


And  Jesus  came  and  spake  unto  them,  saying,  All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven 
and  in  earth.  Go  ye  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things 
whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you :  and,  lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end 
of  the  world.    Amen. 

Matt,  xxviii.  18-2a 


SECOND  EDITION. 

BOSTON: 
D.  LOTHROP    AND    COMPANY, 

30  AND  32  Fkanklln  Street. 
1882. 


Copyright,  1881, 
By  D.  Lotheop  and  Compaiiy. 


Lucy  Seaman  Bainbridge. 

OUB  SON  WILLIAM, 

Ml  EVER   HELPFUL   COMPANIONS    ON   THIS 

TWO  YEARS'  JOURNEY  AROUND 

THE  WORLD, 

Wljis  'Balumt  is  JhtsctiireH. 


••kTHEOLOCIG:-iL,.v' 


Upon  return  to  America,  the  writer  of  the  following 
pages  was  urged  by  the  executive  officers  of  several  of 
the  missionary  societies  of  the  different  branches  of  the 
Church  to  publish  a  record  of  personal  impressions  re- 
garding the  utility  and  methods  of  Christian  Missions. 
It  was  thought  that  very  exceptional  opportunities  of 
comparative  study  had  been  enjoyed  in  the  two  years' 
tour  of  the  majority  of  mission  fields  throughout  the 
world,  and  that  a  volume,  such  as  it  has  been  the  en- 
deavor to  make  the  following,  should  be  the  first  fruits. 
While  acknowledging  special  obligations  to  the  Church 
of  England  Missionary  Atlas,  to  the  late  survey  of  Prot- 
estant Missions  by  Professor  Christlieb  of  Germany,  to 
the  published  papers  of  the  recent  Mildmay  Conference, 
and  to  contributions  to  missionary  literature  from  the 
Secretaries  of  the  Congregationalist  and  Presbyterian 
Boards,  the  endeavor  has  been  to  write  as  far  as  pos- 
sible from  the  field  rather  than  from  the  library  shelves. 
The  best  books  of  reference  are  the  missionaries  them- 
selves and  their  work.  We  linger  a  little  longer  than 
some  may  desire  before  embarking  upon  the  Pacific,  yet 
America  is  a  great  continent  to  cross,  and  the  necessary 
week  enables  us  to  consider  the  questions  of  home  mis- 
sions and  home  resources,  upon  which  rests  all  foreign 
evangelization. 

W.  F.  BAINBRIDGE. 

Providence,  B.  L,  Dec.  188L 


i/    PEIJ^l 


CONTEJS^TS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

PAGE. 

The  Search  of  Canaan.  —  One  likewise  of  Promise  Land  To-day  with 
Caleb  Report.  —  Work  of  over  a  Thousand  Missionaries  of  all  Chris- 
tian Nations  and  of  all  Branches  of  Church  Universal  examined.  — 
Familiarity  with  Christian  Missions  a  Liberal  Education.  —  Compre- 
hensive Study  required.  —  Special  Purpose  Study  of  Principles  and 
Comparative  "^Methods.  —  Considerable  Material  already  Gathered 
for  a  Science  of  ^Missions.  —  Independent  Investigation.  —  Trans- 
Pacific  instead  of  Trans- Atlantic  Excursions  Recommended. — 
Home  Mission  Introduction  to  Foreign  Mission  Investigations  and 
Labors.  —  Dawn  of  the  Day  of  Universal  Missions  which  is  to  Wit- 
ness the  Universal  Triumph  of  Christianity 11 

CHAPTER  I. 

NEW  YORK  WESTWARD. 

Ocean  Steamers  in  Harbor.  —  Their  Story  of  Balance  of  Trade  in  Our 
Favor. —Accompanying  Responsibility.  —  Carrying  Facilities  of 
World  Providential  for  Missions.  —  Little  Wanderers'  Homes. — 
Church  Fairs  too  Costly.  —  Temperance  Reform  Principally  a  Ques- 
tion of  Christian  Home  Mission  Work.  — Total  Abstinence  and  Pro- 
hibitory Legislation  Correct  Principles.  —  Mission  Work  for  Sailors. 

—  Their  TTse  in  Foreign  Missions.  —  Denominationalism  a  Blessing. 

—  Multiplication  of  Churches  in  Small  ViUages.  —  Greatness  of 
America.  —  Its  Greater  Future.  — Our  Supreme  Obligation  to  Chris- 
tianity. —  World-wide  Evangelization  our  only  Adequate  Expression 

of  Gratitude 25 


CHAPTER  n. 

TO  SAN  FRANCISCO. 

True  Attitude  of  Protestants  towards  Catholics  in  America.  —  Catholicism 
Here  Different  from  that  of  Europe.  — American  Protestant  Respon- 
sibility. —  Cosmopolitan  Character  of  our  Country.  —  God's  Purpose 
in  this.  —  Are  Christians  Furthering  such  Purpose  ?  —  Two  sides  of 
American  Church  Statistics.  — Young  Men's  Christian  Associations. 
—  Their  Use  and  Abuse.  —  The  Church  Weekly  Prayer  Meeting. — 
Dearth  of  Real  Prayer  leading  Cause  of  Lamentable  Want  of  Spirit- 
ual Power  in  both  Home  and  Foreign  Evangelizing  Efforts. — Reason 
of  the  Prayer  Famine.  —  God  herein  Uncompromising 36 


Viii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE  in. 

WAITING  FOR  OUR  STEAMSHIP. 

City  of  San  Francisco.  —  Its  Anomaly  of  a  Clerical  Mayor.  —  Peril  of 
Violating  Ordination  Vows.  —  Meeting  Southerners  at  Palace  HoteL 

—  The  South  has  Accepted  the  Ptesults  of  the  War  in  Good  Faith.— 
Prevailing  Northern  Suspicion  not  Justified,  — Educational  Solution 
of  Southern  Problem.  —  Christian  Training  Schools  the  Special  De- 
mand. —  The  Missionary  Material  for  Africa.  —  Social  Ban  upon 
Northerners  at  South  Liable  to  Exaggeration.— Necessity  of  Northern 
and  Southern  Christian  Co-operation.  —  American  Home  and  Foreign 
Missionary  Agencies. — Women's  Societies.  —  Some  Causes  for 
Anxiety 47 

CHAPTER  IV. 

A    DAT    AT    THE    CLIFFS. 

A  Betreat  for  Thought.  — American  Chinese  Question.  —  Unnecessaiy 
Scare.  —  The  Under  World  of  San  Francisco.  —  Chinese  Adepts  at 
Learning  to  Advance  Price  of  Labor. — The  New  Treaty  Unneces- 
sary.— American  Tendency  to  Overdo  Legislation. — More  Faith  in 
Men  and  Unwritten  Laws  of  Human  Life  Needed.  —  Contribution 
of  Christian  Missions  to  Successful  Negotiation  of  the  New  Treaty. 

—  General  Debt  of  Statesmanship  to  Missionaries.  —  Stock  Gambling. 
—Spirit  of  Speculation  Abroad  Great  Load  to  American  Christianity.— 
The  Worm  at  the  Root  of  Some  Ministerial  Failures.  —  The  Indian 
Question.  —  The  Bullet  or  the  Bible.  —  Situation  of  California 
Churches.  —  Their  Blight  Caused  by  lack  of  Missionary  Spirit. — 
Hopeful  Labors  of  Messrs.  Moody  and  Sankey 50 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE     PACIFIC     OCEAN. 

Farewell  to  Native  Land.  — Our  Little  Floating  World.  — Mrs.  Bain- 
bridge's  "  Round  the  World  Letters."  —  Ignorance  and  Misrepresen- 
tation Concerning  Missionaries.  —  Caught  in  His  Own  Trap.  —  The 
Selfishness  of  Mere  Home  Mission  Interest.— Wisdom  of  Departure 
from  Early  Church  Custom  of  Self-Supporting  Missionaries.  —  De- 
mand of  the  Day  Brain  at  its  Best. — Christ's  Plan  of  Support  for  the 
Twelve  and  Seventy  Temporary.  —  Embarrassments  from  Well- 
Meaning  but  Impracticable  Missionaries.  — No  Modern  "Liberaliz- 
ing "  of  Christianity  Needed  for  World.  —  Christ  Crucified  its  Power. 

—  Loyalty  to  the  Christian  Sabbath  Needed 72 

CHAPTER  VI. 

SANDWICH  ISLANDS,   ALASKA,   AND  SIBERIA. 

Half-way  on  Pacific.  —  Rule  of  Burial  at  Sea  Unnecessary. — Mission 
WorkwithOfficers  Also.  — Missionary  Literature  in  Ocean  Libraries. 

—  Also  in  Sundav  School  Libraries.  —  Our  Heavenly  Father's  De- 
lightful Surprises'  for  His  Children.  —  Ebb  of  Chinese  Immigration 
with  Anti-Christian  Impressions.  —  Christianity  in  Sandwich  Islands. 

—  Missionary  Basis  of  Operations  for  Micronesia.  —  Bright  Material 
Prospects  of  Alaska.  —  Its  Spiritual  Interests  Scarcely  Noticed. — 
Siberia's  Macedonian  Call, —Need  of  Planting  Missions  at  Right 
Time.  —  Missionary  Agencies  of  Great  Britain  and  Europe.  —  Gi'owth 
of  Mission  Spirit  in  Present  Century.  —  "  The  Field  is  the  World." 

—  Eighty-one  Years  of  partial  Results.  —  Inspection  of  Steerage     .      87 


CONTENTS.  ,ix 


CHAPTER  VII. 

JAPAN  AISTD   THE   JAPANESE. 

The  "World  a  Neig-hborhood.  —  Geography  of  Japan.  —  Tokio,  Kiyoto, 
and  Osaka,  the  Political,  Religious,  and  Financial  Capitals.  —  The 
Tokaido. — Francis  Xavier  in  Satsuma.  —  Shimabara  Massacre  of 
Christians.  —  Three  Periods  of  Japanese  History.  —  Origin  of  Sho- 
gunate.  —  Rome  to  Blame  for  Japan's  Exclusive  Policy.  — The 
Double  Game  of  Japanese  Diplomacy  regarding  the  Trea- 
ties. —  The  Revolution  Triumphant.  —  The  Double  Written 
Language.  —  Shintooism. —  Buddhism.  —  Confucian  Scholasticism. — 
Signs  of  Unsettling  of  Popular  Faiths.  —  Materialistic  Teaching  at 
Tokio  University.  —  Northern  Tour  to  Nikko.  —  Japanese  Difficulty 
with  the  Treaties.  —  Evangelical  Doctrine  of  Substitution  Familiar 
to  Japanese. — Three  Hundi-ed  Miles  Through  the  Interior. — 
Native  Hotels.  —  Customs 102 


CHAPTER  Vni. 

MISSIONARY  WORK  IN  JAPAN. 

Full  Measure  here  of  Missionary  Trials.  —  Superficial  View  of  Christi- 
anity. —  True  Spirit  of  Union  Remarkably  Illustrated  by  the  Foreign 
Missionaries  in  Japan.  —  Climatic  Influence  upon  Missionary  Tem- 
per.—  Well  for  Missionaries  to  Visit  Other  Fields.  — Getting  Out  of 
Ruts.  —  Independent  Missionary  Labor  Generally  of  More  Harm 
than  Good. — Confounding  Conscientiousness  with  Wilfulness. — 
Well  for  Home  Churches  not  to  Encourage  those  Missionaries  who 
Break  with  the  Boards.  —  Education  of  Native  Ministry  at  Kiyoto.  — 
The  Invisible  Co-operations  of  God  with  His  Embarrassed  Servants. 
—  Bible  Translation  Work  and  the  Two-fold  Results.  —  Rule  of  Out- 
lay for  Mission  Buildings.  —  ^Esthetic  Considerations  also. — The 
Use  of  English  in  Mission  Schools.  —  Hiding  Personal  Disqualifica- 
tions behind  Principles. — Demand  for  En<j:lish  Instruction  Over- 
Estimated.  —  Foreignizing  Scholars  in  Mission  Schools.  —  Here 
also  Extreme  Views.  — Over-doing  Self-Support.  — Union  Church. — 
Bible  Society. — The  Scale  of  Missionary  Supply  a  Rising  One. — 
Single  Women  Missionaries.  —  Remarkable  Openings  for  Native 
Preachers.  —  Catholic  and  Greek  Missions 118 


CHAPTER  IX. 

CHINA  GEOGRAPHICALLY  AND  HISTORICALLY. 

Four  Hundred  Millions !  — Yet  Reasons  for  Inclining  to  this  Estimate. — 
India  Comparison.  —  Effoi't  to  Realize  the  Stupendous  Fact.  — 
Geographic  Parallels  between  China  and  America.  —  China's  An- 
tiquity.—  The  successive  Dynasties  Avith  their  Leading  National 
Events.  —  Approaching  China  from  .Japan.  —  Shanghai. — Mongo- 
lians and  Caucasians  as  Soldiers. — Average  Chinese  Estimate  of 
European  and  American  Foi'eigners.  — Prince  Kung's  Sarcasm  on 
Missionaries.  — Our  Seven  Inland  Tours  from  Treaty  Ports. — 
Glances  at  Nine  of  the  Eighteen  Provinces.  — "  Fan-qui-tsu!"  — 
Safety  to  Person  and  Property  of  Travel.  — Chinese  Contract  and  its 
Fulfilment.  —  Missionary  Experience  after  the  Novelty  is  Gone.  — 
Hang-chow  Medicine  Manufactoiy ,  —  Kiang-si  Waters.  —  Han-kow 
Centre  of  Population.  —  Peking  and  the  Great  Wall.  —  Legation  Hos- 
pitality.—  Shantung's  Sanitarium  and  Interior.  —  Fuh-kien  from 
Fu-chow  and  Amoy.  —  Ah-Hok's  "  Lunch"  of  30  Courses.  —  Swatow 
and  Interior  of  Kwang-tung. — Hong-kong  to  Canton  and  Beyond.     139 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  X. 

CHINA  POLITICALLY  AND  SOCIALLT. 

Its  Unwritten  Constitution.  —  A  Patriotic  Censor.  —  The  Regents.  — 
Their  over-reaching  Policy.  —  Li-Hung-Chang  and  Restoi-ation  of 
Native  Dynasty. — Che-kiang  described  as  Sample  of  China.  — Fu 
and  Hien  Cities.  — Hang-chow  the  old  and  future  Capital.  —  Marco 
Polo.  —  Soil  Productions.  —  The  Opium  question  in  China. — Eng- 
land's Responsibility.  —  Spiritual  Weapons  required.  —  Intemperance 
the  deadly  Effect  of  Moderation.  —  China's  Written  Language  and 
Spoken  Dialects,  —  Precocious  Memories.  —  Industrious  Character  of 
the  Chinese.  —  Their  Mission  to  the  World.  —  Famine  Benefits. — 
Railroads. — Rottenness  of  Civil  Service.  —  Christian  Heroism. — 
Customs  Service.  — The  National  Examination  System  of  China. — 
Prospect  of  its  Utilization  in  Elevation  of  the  People.  —  Imperial 
University  at  Peking.  — China's  prospects  Contrasted  with  those  of 
Japan 103 

CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  RELIGIONS  OF  CHINA. 

Visit  to "  Temple  of  Heaven"  at  Peking. — Has  God  ever  been  Wor- 
shipped here  ?  —  Refined  Heathenism  after  all.  —  Deification  of 
Nature.  —  "  Shangti  ",  "  Tien-chu  ",  and  "  Shin  "  difficulty.  —  The 
"Fung-shway"  Superstition. — Its  History  and  Philosophy.  —  Its 
universal  Influence.  —  Really  the  one  Religion  of  China. — Why 
Railroads  and  Telegraphs  are  almost  impossible. — The  Missionary 
Embarrassment.  —  Reaction  from  Nature  Worship  in  two  Direc- 
tions. — Laou-tsze  and  his  Taouism. —  Confucius.  —  His  Moral  Phil- 
osophy —  Ancestral  Worship.  —  Confucianism  a  failure.  —  Yet  supe- 
rior to  Buddhism 168 


CHAPTER  XII. 

BUDDHISM  NOT   "  THE   LIGHT  OF  ASIA." 

Too  much  Credit  given  to  reputed  Founders  of  World  Religion. — 
Preparation  for  Buddhism  in  India,  China  and  Japan.  —  Regions  of 
Tradition  and  Legend.  —  The  Vedic  Religion. —  Likeness  of  its  Sun- 
god  to  Siddhartha.  —  Amitabha's  Eclipse  of  Buddha. —  Practical  Sup- 
pression of  Nirvana  in  China.  —  Buddhistic  Disregai'd  of  Principle 
in  Proselytism.  —  India  Buddhism  Retui'ns  to  Hinduism.  —  Ready 
Acceptance  of  new  Alliance  with  Japan's  Shintooism. — Historic 
Kernel  to  Siddhartha  Legend.  —  "Philosophy  run  Mad."  —  The 
Night-walker  throughout  Asia. — Difficulty  of  Statistics  of  Bud- 
dhism.—  The  Darkness  of  Asia.  —  Obligations  of  Buddhism  to  Rome. 
—  Buddha's  Atheism  and  consequent  Darkness. — Conscience  well 
Interpi'eted  but  the  Light  of  its  Morals  Extinguished. — Buddha's 
supreme  Selfishness.  —  His  Dogma  of  Merit.  —  The  Masquerade  of 
the  Virtues. —  Buddhistic  Sin  mere  Misfortune. —  Thorough  Pessim- 
ism.—  Yama's  Credit  Marks,  —  Existence  a  Scramble  for  Self. — 
Superiority  of  the  Confucian  Morality    ....    i    ......    185 


CHAPTER  Xin. 

CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  IN  CHINA. 

Contribution  of  Roman  Catholic  Missions  to  Chinese  Evangelization.  — 
Various  Protestant  Advantages.  —  Visits  for  Comparative  Study.— 
Rome's  Opposition  to  our  Missions.  —Evangelizing  Use  of  Christian 


CONTENTS. 


Homes.  —  Their  Influence  in  Christian  Lands  Underestimated. — 
Missionaries'  Children.  — Position  of  the  Unmarried  Missionary 
Women.  —  Suggestion  of  Protestant  celibate  Sisterhoods  Unwise.  — 
Missionary  Statistics  of  China. —  Waiving  sectarian  Comparisons. — 
Presbyterian  Model  Press  at  Shanghai.  —  Baptists  at  Swatow  on 
place  of  Schools  and  use  of  Bible  Women.  —  Utility  of  Chinese 
Classics.  —  Important  lesson  from  Methodist  Mission  at  Fu-chow.  — 
Walking  by  Sight  and  by  Faith.  — English  and  American  Congrega- 
tionahst  Missions.  —  Talent  appreciated  abroad  also. — Neglecting 
Vacations.  — Wesleyans.  —  Church  Missionary  Society.  —  Danger  of 
encouraging  Converts  under  Discipline  of  other  Missions.  —  Ameri- 
can Episcopalian  Mission.  —  Bishop  Schereschewsky's  College. — 
S.  P.  G.  Society.  —  German  Societies.  —  Reformed  Mission  at  Amoy. 
—  Various  other  Evangelical  Missions 199 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

MISSIONARY  OUTLOOK  IN  CHINA. 

The  "  China  Inland  Mission."— Its  Statistics  and  Principles  of  Support 
and  Work.  —  Mistaken  Exegesis.  —  Peculiarities.  —  Unfavorable  im- 
pressions produced  by  the  Dress.  —Results  in  part  Disappointing.  — 
Hasty  Use  of  the  Language.  —  Overdoing  Itinerancy.  —  Mistaken 
view  of  Providential  Leadership.  — Their  Faith  Principle  of  Support 
not  Consistently  carried  out.  —The  Principle  a  Travesty  upon  True 
Godly  Faith.  — Its  Advertising'  Methods  may  be  more  Wise  but  not 
more  Pious  than  ordinary  Solicitations.  —  "  Higher  Life  "  peculiarly 
Censorious.  —  Wisdom  from  Above  needed  in  dealing  with  the  Phe- 
nomenon.—  Missionary  Physicians. — Their  varied  Usefulness. — 
Women  as  Physicians. — The  Unoccupied  Field  in  China. — The 
Mission  Sunday  Question.  —  Hii'ing  Sunday  School  Attendance. 
Experiments  with  Phonetic  Alphabets.  —  Drawing  Distinctions.  — 
Some  Fruitage  of  Buddhism.  —  Missionary  Temptations. —  The 
Change  Cure.  —  Wisdom  of  Clustering  Missionary  Families.  —  The 
Foot-binding.  —  Idolatrous  Paper-Work.  —  Prevalent  Domestic  Slav- 
eiy.  —  Some  more  of  "the  Light  of  Asia."  —  Martyrology.  —  Illus- 
trations of  Chinese  Christian  Character.  —  Union  Spirit  of  the  Mis- 
sions.—  Yet  danger  of  Paralysis  of  Faith 221 


CHAPTER  XV. 

DUTCH  EAST  INDIES  AND  OTHER  ISLES. 

The  Island  World.  —  Protestant  and  Catholic  Colonization.  —  Twenty- 
Five  Millions.  —  Australia. — Religious  Divisions.  —  Former  Great 
Buddhistic  Power  in  Java.  —  Present  Civilization  of  Java. — Bata- 
via.  —  Railroads.  —  Scenery.  —  Productions.  —  Serfdom.  —  Marvel- 
lous Diffusion  of  the  Polynesian  Language. — Melanesian  Race. — 
Moravian  Missions.  —  Culture  not  Required  to  Receive  the  Gospel. 

—  To  most  Degraded,  Christianity  Preceding  Civilization.  —  Count 
von  Zinzendorf.  —  Herrnhut.  —  "  Unitas  Fra,trum."  —  Maori  of  New 
Zealand.  —  Martyrdom  of  Volkner.  — Reasons  why  Missions  Back- 
ward in  Dutch  East  Indies. — Minahassa  Exception  in  Celebes. — 
Missionaiy  Fidelity  Illustrated.  —  God's  Leadership  into  Polynesia. 

—  Tahiti.  —  French  Toleration.  —  Native  Consecration.  —  Eagerness 
to  Purchase  Bibles.  —  Embarrassed  Fidelity  to  Missions.  —  Fiji.  — 
The  "Dogs"  our  Instructors. — New  Hebrides.  —  Cannibal  Feasts 
over  Several  Martyred  Missionaries.  —  The  Hai'vest 246 


xn  CONTENTS* 


CHAPTER    XVI. 


SIAM  AND  ANAM. 


French  Cochin  China.  —  Camboja.  —  Tonquin.  —  Hue,  the  Anam  Capital. 
—  "Light  of  Asia"  Burnt  Out.  —  Important  Mission  Fields.— 
Glances  at  History,  People  and  Government  of  Siam.  —  Natural  Fea- 
tures.—  Religious  Condition.  —  Catholic  and  Protestant  Missions. — 
Denominational  Division  of  Work. — Re-consideration  of  its  Wis- 
dom,,—  Advantage  of  Emulation.  —  Bang-kok  "The  Venice  of 
the  East."  —  Some  Characteristics  of  Siamese  Buddhism.  —  A  Mo- 
rality of  Fear.  —  Specimen  Objections  of  Natives  to  Christian- 
ity. —  La  Loubere  Reviewed.  —  The  Special  Responsibility  of 
Missions.  —  Christianity  not  to  be  Administered  in  Acceptable 
Quantities.  —  Missionary  Optimism  as  well  as  Pessimism  to  be 
Avoided.  —  Abandoning  Stations  a  Serious  Matter.  —  Timely  Re- 
inforcement of  Stations.  —  Singapore.  —  Prison  Mission  Work. — 
Penang 264 


CHAPTER  XVn. 

BURMAH    AND    ASSAM. 

The  Countries.  —  Their  Populations  and  Religious  Condition.  —  History 
and  Present  Governments.  —  Noble  Stand  for  Good  Morals,  of  Com- 
missioner Atchison.  —  The  Wars  with  Great  Britain.  — Rangoon  and 
Shway-Dagon  Pagoda.  —  Manners  and  Customs.  —  Establishment  of 
Burmah  Mission  by  Dr.  Judson  and  wife.  —  The  Legacy  of  their 
Lives  and  Character  to  Universal  Church.  — Their  Co-laborers  and 
Successors.  —  Heroic  Age  of  Missions  Not  Passed.  —  More  than 
Romantic  Interest  still  Awaiting  Discovery. — All  Missionaries 
Should  Retain  some  Pastoral  Itinerating  Work.  —  Some  Spoiled  by 
Too  Much  of  the  School-Room  and  of  Book-Making.  —  Karens.  — 
Ko  Thah-byu.  — Remarkable  Bassein  School.  —  How  the  Karen  Chris- 
tians Built'lt.  —  World  Lesson  on  Giving.  —  Judson's  Grand  Mistake 
in  Burmah.  — Not  Wise  to  Educate  Natives  in  America  or  Europe.  — 
Nor  to  Adopt  them  into  Mission  Families.  —  More  Self-Support 
Needed  in  Schools.  —  Overcrowding  of  Mission  Schools.  —  Need  of 
Missionary  Resei^ves  for  Sudden  Advance  Movements.  —  Garos  of 
Assam.  —  Burmah  and  Assam  Key  to  Asia 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

INDIA,   THE   COUNTRY,    PEOPLE    AND  RELIGIONS. 

Leaving  Buddhistic  Countries.  —  Parting  glance  in  a  Maulmain  Temple. 

—  The  Jainas.  —  The  Singhalese.  —  Divisions  of  the  Empire.  —  Its 
Natural   Resources.  —  India  Histoiy.  —  British  Sway  Providential. 

—  Changed  Government  Attitude  toward  Missions.  —  Christian  Mis- 
sions  alone  can   render  recurrence  of  Mutiny  Impossible. — Lan- 

guages. —  The  Task  of  a  Christian  Literature. — Architecture, — 
►evelopment  of  Brahmanism.  — The  Rig-Veda.  — Copernicus  antici- 
pated. —  Code  of  Menu.  —  Caste  System.  —  Evangelization  must  not 
compromise.  — Vileness  of  Hindu  Worship.  —  Grotesqueness  of  Hindu 
Temple  Symbolism.  —  Moslemism.  —  Has  it  been  a  benefit  ?  —  Par- 
sees.  —  Chunder  Sen.  —  "  Christians  of  St.  Thomas."  —  The  Political 
Educational  Problem  of  India.— False  Neutrality 302 


CONTENTS.  *      Xiii 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  IN  INDIA. 

The  Field  of  their  Largest  modern  Development.  —  Four  Months'  touring 
among  them.  —  Their  two  great  Periods.  — At  Serampore.  —  Consul- 
General  Litchfield.  —  The  Missionary  living  question.  —  Demands 
of  the  smaller-salaried  home  Ministry.  —  Heroic  Missionary  Work. 

—  Present  Rapidity  of  India  Evangelization.  —  The  Quickening  of 
Thought  and  Universal  Unrest.  —  Approaching  Conflict  with  Islam- 
ism.  —  Henry  Martyn.  —  Church  Missionar}'  Society.  —  S.  P.  G.  — 
America's  Debt  of  Obligation.  —  London  Mission. —  Wesleyans. — 
English  Baptists.  —  Scotch  Missions.  —  Lutheran  Societies.  —  The 
Famine.  — American  Baptists.  — Lessons  at  Ongole  and  Ramapatam. 
— A  Fundamental  Principle  in  the  Architecture  of  Missions. — 
Zenana  Work.  —  A.  B.  C.  F.  M. —  Methodists.  —  Presbyterians. — 
Friends.  —  Swedes.  —  Free  Baptists.  —  Moravians.  —  U.  P.  C.  Mis- 
sions. —  Sikhs.  —  Naneka 321 

CHAPTER    XX. 

MISSIONARY  OUTLOOK   IN  INDIA. 

Limit  of  Adequacy  of  Supply.  —  Demand  of  Missions  Not  Beyond  Pres- 
ent Resources  of  Church.  —  America's  Proportion.  —  Benediction  and 
Responsibility  of  Missionaries'  Children.  —  Rule  that  they  must  be 
sent  Home  not  exceptionless.  —  More  Fraternization  needed.  —  Lack 
of  Spiritual  Power.  —  Christian  Character  in  India  not  sufficiently 
impressive. —  High  Caste  Converts. — Evangelization  or  Failure. — 
Limit  of  Distinctiveh'  Missionary  Interests.  —  Encouragement  and 
Danger  of  Government  Patronage  of  Missions.  — Missionary  Money 
a  special  Trust  Fund.  —  British  Religious  Neutrality  Impossible. — 
Demand  for  Christian  Literature  far  beyond  supply.  —  Industry  on 
Christian  Principles.  — Permanency  of  Mission  Buildings.  —  Native 
Self-reliance.  —  Mission  School  Architecture.  —  Native  and  Imported 
Sei-vices  of  Song.  —  In  each  Nation  its  own  best  Musical  Vez'nacular. 

—  Parting  Glimpses  of  Thought  and  Memories  of  India 339 

CHAPTER    XXI. 

PERSIA  AND  EASTWARD. 

Past  and  Present  of  Persian  Empire.  —  Natural  Resources.  —  Political 
Situation  and  Prospects.  — Population  and  its  Rehgions.  —  Christian 
Missions.  —  Their  Expense  in  Persia  compared  with  Cost  of  sustain- 
ing Churches  in  America.  —  Statistical  Quagmire,  —  The  Strategic 
Science  of  Mission  Locations.  — Teheran  and  its  Twilight  of  Modern 
Life. — Advantage  of  Persia's  Heretical  Moslemism.  —  Liberalizing 
and  Emancipating  Tendencies  of  various  Sects.  —  Increasing  Direct 
Access  of  Christian  Missions  to  the  Mahometans. — Universal  Les- 
son from  attempted  Reform  of  Nestorian  Church.  —Roman  Catholics 
in  Persia  and  Afghanistan.  —  Awakening  among  the  Jews.  —  Obliga- 
tion of  the  Church  to  Children  of  Israel.  —  Perhaps  this  in  part  to  be 
discharged  among  the  Afghans.  — Dilawur  Khan.  —  Missionary  In- 
valids. —  Their  continued  Usefulness.  —  Dying  on  the  Field    .    .    .    357 

CHAPTER    XXn. 

BABYLON,   NINEVEH  AND  JERUSALEM. 

Lessons  from  Bible  Lands  for  Christian  Missions.  —  Next  to  the  Bible 
itself  Bible  Lands  the  Book's  best  Commentary.  —  A  Suggestion  in 
the  interest  of  Missionaries  and  their  Work.  —  Baghdad,  its  Past  and 


XaV  CONTENTS. 

Present.  —  Touring  Preparations. — Correspondino;  Outfits  at  Beirut 
and  Cairo.  —  Garden  of  Eden.  —  At  Babylon.  —  Nebuchadnezzar's 
Palace. — Fulfilment  of  Prophecy.  —  "Hanging-  Gardens."  —  Re- 
markable Statuary. — Daniel's  Palace.  —  Hillah  and  the  Euphrates. 
Tower  of  Babel.  —  Tomb  of  Ezekiel.  —  At  Nineveh.  —  Situation  and 
Appearance  of  Proud  Assyrian  Capital.  —  Excavations.  —  Prophecy. 

—  Oriental  Farewell  from  Mosul  Native  Missionary.  —  A  Meditation 
uf)on  Olivet.  —  Not  Tears  Enough  in  World  Evangelization  To-day. 

A  Symbol  at  Memphis 374 

CHAPTER    XXHI. 

THE  TURKISH   EMPIRE   AND  ARABIA. 

Othman  and  the  Osmanlis. — Mohammed  H.  and  St.  Sophia. — Victory 
of  Sobieski.  — Present  Deplorable  Condition  of  Empire.  — Rich  Nat- 
ural Resources.  —  Scantiness  of  Population  and  some  of  the  Causes. 

—  Arabia's  Surprises  for  the  World.  —  Arabs  again  the  Coming  Race. 

—  Universal  Disloyalty.  —  Contrasts  at  Bijirek.  —  Days  of  the  Otto- 
man Power  Numbered.  — Probable  Solution  of  the  Eastern  Question. 

—  Its  Bearing  upon  Christian  Missions  in  these  lands.  —  The  Koran 
and  Religious  Liberty.  —  The  Coming  Fair  Confiict  between  Chris- 
tianity and  Islamism.  —  Educational  and  Literary  Preparations. — 
Greek  Church.  —  Greek  Catholics.  —  Syrian  Catholics.  —  Armenian 
Catholics.  —  Bulgarian   Church.  —  Armenian   Church.  —  Maronites. 

—  Chaldean  Catholics.  —  Jacobites.  —  Chaldean  Nestorians.  —  Les- 
sons from  Nestorian  History  for  To-day.  —  Fragments 392 

CHAPTER    XXIV. 

CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  IN    TURKEY. 

Pioneering  the  Levant. — Rising  Moslem  Estimate  of  Protestantism  — 
Name  of  "  Christian  "  must  be  Redeemed.  —  Theorizing  on  Missions 
versus  Missionary  Experience.  —  Need  in  Mission  Literatui-e  of  the 
Reserved  Talent.  —  Home  Churches  and  Boards  not  to  be  limited  to 
mere  questions  of  support.  —  American  Board  Missions.  —  Presby- 
terian and  other  Missions.  —  Encouraging  Statistics.  —  Some  Phases 
of  the  "  Mission  School  Question."  —  Adapting  Methods  to  Circum- 
stances. —  Robert  College  at  Constantinople.  —  Beirut  Protestant 
College.  —  Scripture  Translation.  —  Christian  Literature.  — The  Ara- 
bic Bible  and  its  Outlook.  —  Islam  Evidently  Doomed.  —  No  Com- 
promise to  be  Entertained.  —  Late  War  and  Famine  Opportunities 
for  Evangelization.  —  Special  Qualifications  of  American  Mission- 
aries. —  "  The  Home  "  at  Scutari.  —  Grand  Advance  of  "  Woman's 
Work  for  Woman."  — A  Main  Force  for  Overthrow  of  Islamism  and 
Brahmanism.  —  Clustered  Encouragements 412 

CHAPTER    XXV. 

AFRICA  AND  ITS   EVANGELIZATION. 

Historical  Reflections.  —  Revelation  and  Egyptology. — Influence  of 
North  Africa  upon  Christendom.  —  Geography  of  the  Continent.  — 
The  Populations.  —  Explorations.  —  Dr.  Livingstone.  —  Stanley  and 
Mtesa.  —  Great  Britain  and  the  Slave-trade.^  Formidable  Difficul- 
ties.—  Survey'  of  the  Mission  Forces.  —  Copts.  —  Sierra  Leone. — 
Liberia.  —  Gold  and  Slave  Coasts.  —  Niger.  —  Congo.  —  Bihe.  — 
South  Africa  a  Protestant  Christian  Country.  —  Base  and  Sup- 
plies for  Evangelization  of  Interior.  —  Canals  and  Railways. — 
Influence  of  the  Wars. — Berlin  Missionary  Economy.  —  God  Re- 
vealing Long  Hidden  Purposes, — Industrial  Institutions. — Prepa- 


CONTENTS.  X7 

rations  for  Advance  on  East  Africa.  —  Locating-  on  Nyassa,  Tangan- 
yika and  Victoria  Nyanza.  —  Grandeur  of  the  Outlook.' —  Madagascar 
and  other  Isles. — "Marvellous  Triumphs  of  the  Cross.  —  Maps. — 
Evangelization  Leading  Civilization.  —  Eelation  of  Missions  to  Secu- 
lar Power.  —  The  Heart  of  Christendom  turning  toward  Africa    .     .    432 

CHAPTER    XXVI. 

GREEK  AND  CATHOLIC  EUROPE. 

Temptations  to  Linger.  —  The  Religious  bituation  Largely  Political.  — 
Encouraging  Signs  of  Separation  of  Church  and  State.  —  Non-con- 
formity in  Russia.  —Catholic  Adoption  of  Protestant  Methods. —A 
Blessing  in  Disguise.  —  Should  Evangelical  ili^sions  he  limited  to 
Pagan  and  Anti-Christian  Nations  ?  —  The  Answer  of  Mahometan- 
ism. —  European  and  American  Catholicism  Contrasted.  —  Idolatrous 
Worship  of  Icons  in  Russia.  —  Heathenism  of  the  Czar.  — The  Pagan- 
ism of  Rome.  —  Dissent.  —  The  Molokani  and  Stundisti.  —  Catholic 
Unity  an  Illusion. —  The  Infidel  Movement.  —  Amazing  Religious 
Ignorance  of  the  Masses.  —Dormant  National  Consciences.  — Polit- 
ical Unrest. —Anxiety  of  the  Masses  for  Something  Abiding. —  Un- 
masking of  Error.  —  Attacking  Corrupted  Christianity  at  its  Sources. 

—  Survey  of  Advance  Guards  of  Evangelical  Forces 463 

CHAPTER    XXVIL 

PROTESTANT   EUROPE. 

Multiplied  Diversions.  —  Re-entering  the  Lines  Marshalled  for  Universal 
Conquest.  —  Stability  and  Permanency  of  Great  Britain  and  Ger- 
many. —  The  Guardians  of  Evangelical  Labor  throughout  Europe 
and  the  World.  —  Their  Home  Work.  —  London.  —  The  Pauper  Class 
and  Charity.  —  Spheres  of  Established  and  Dissenting  Churches.  — 
Advantages  of  Disestablishment.  —  General  Reawakening  of  Evan- 
gelical Life.  —  Occasioned  Largely  by  Retlex  Influence  of  Foreign 
Missions.  —  The  Question  of  British  and  American  Missions  in  Pro- 
testant Europe.  —  A  Great  Community  of  Interest  and  Obligation.  — 
The  Christian  Home  of  British  and  European  Protestantism.  — 
Plymouth  Brotherhood,  &c .,  the  Antipode  of  High  Churchism.  — 
For  Neither  America  a  Congenial  Soil.  —  Sublime  Spectacle  of  Mis- 
sion Forces.  —  Evangelizing  Jews.  —  Anglo-Saxon  Colonization  as 
Evangelistic  Agency 478 

CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

WEST  INDIES,   SOUTH  AMERICA,   AND  OTHER  MISSION  LANDS. 

Countries,  Rich  in  Natural  Resources  and  History.  —  Northern  and  South- 
ern Continents  Compared.  —  Toltecs  and  Aztecs  of  Mexico.  —  Incas 
of  Peru.  —  Conflict  between  Rome  and  Protestantism  for  the  New 
World.  —  Spanish  Colonization.  —  Trans-Atlantic  Inquisition  and 
Auto-da-fe. — The  Heritajje  of  Serfdom  and  Slavery. —  British 
Emancipation.  —  The  Righteous  Act  Nevertheless  a  Necessity.  — 
Result  only  Partial  Amelioration.  —  Tyranny  and  Slavery  Survive 
all  Legislation.  —  Corresponding  Situation  in  Chili,  Mexico,  Brazil 
and  elsewhere.  —  Need  of  Evangelizing  Agencies.  —  The  Supply  far 
behind  the  Demand.  —  Mission  Results  in  West  Indies.  —  Jamaica 
Christianized.  — Moravians  in  Nicaragua  and  Guiana.  —  Chinese  and 
East  India  Coolies.  —  S.  P.  G.  —  Wesleyans.  —  Other  Missions. — 
American  Episcopalians,  Methodists  and  Presbvterians  in  Mexico. 

—  Mission  Fields  of  Canadian  Dominion.  —  S.  P.  G.'s  225  Mission- 
aries. —  Remarkable  Work  of  Church  Missionary  Society  in  British 
Columbia.  —  Esquimatix ." 494 


XVI  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 


ATLANTIC      REFLECTIONS. 

A  Memorandum  for  othei"  Tourists.  —  Why  some  Clergymen  are  Ice- 
bergs on  Missions. —  Plain  indeed  the  guiding  Wisdom  of  modern 
Protestant  Missions  that  from  Above. —  Time  Clearing  up  Difficulties. 

—  Rapidity  of  Mission  Success.  —  Future  Preparing  to  be  still  more 
Glorious. — No  Need  of  Impatience  for  Second  Coming  of  our  Lord 
with  Different  Weapons  of  Conquest.  —  Prophecy  to  be  Interpreted  in 
Light  of  Modern  Missions.  —  Christianity  the  Supreme  Need  of  the 
World.  —  Missionary  Vacation  Question.  —  A  Feasible  Plan, — 
Missionaries  Breaking  in  Health. — Their  Expenses  in  the  Home  Land. 

—  Specific  Donations.  — Wisdom  of  Assigning  Missionaries  to  certain 
Churches  for  support  Questioned.  —  More  Unity  and  Concentration 
Needed.  —  The  Missionaries' Social  Treatment  of  Natives.  —  Home 
and  Foreign  Mission  Professorships  and  Lecturships.  —  The  Centi-e 

of  the  Cyclone.  —  A  I^anding  Confession 510 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

HOME  LAND   SUGGESTIONS. 

Ashore.  —  Greetings.  —  At  Home.  —  Some  Common  Objections  to  Mis- 
sion Management  Reviewed. — Work,  Qualifications  and  Pay  of 
Secretaries  and  Treasurers.  — District  Secretaries.  — The  Missionary 
Concert.  —  Society  Publications. — Use  of  Religious  and  Secular 
Press.  —  Anti-mis'sion  Element  in  the  Churches  Chiefly  from  Want  of 
Information.  —  Young  Men  Wanted.  —  "The  Call."  —  Qualifica- 
tions. —  Christ  the  ]Motive  Power.  —  System  in  Benevolence.  —  Obli- 
gation of  Science  to  Missions. — The  Debt  of  Home  Churches  to 
Missions.  —  Best  plan  for  Missionary  Life  Insurance.  —  Chief  Diffi- 
culty of  Missions  and  that  of  Gospel  Identical.  —  How  Churches  can 
Secure  Revivals.  —  Qualified  Testimony  from  the  Mission  Fields.  — 
Several  Important  Witnesses  Called.  —  Signs  of  the  Times.  — Proba- 
bilities of  the  Coming  Century.  —  Kali  Ghat. —  Parting  with  the 
Reader  beside  Statue  of  Bishop  'Heber  in  Calcutta 629 

APPENDIX. 

A  LIST  OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 

Home  Missions  of  United  States  of  America 543 

Foreign  Missions  of  United  States  of  America 544 

Home  Missions  of  Great  Bi-itain 547 

Colonial  Home  Missions 548 

Foreign  Missions  of  Great  Britain 549 

Colonial  Foreign  Missions 551 

Continental  Home  and  Foreign  Missions 551 

Sandwich  Islands  Missions 553 

Roman  Catholic  Foreign  Missions 553 

Greek  Church  Missions,  etc       554 

Key  to  Exploration  Routes  on  Map  op  Africa 555 

Index 557 

LIST  OF  MAPS. 

Religions  of  the  World,  Frontispiece.     China  and  Japan    .    .  102  1-2 
India 302  1-2     Alrica 432  1-2 


syf 


..ST 


aSOLOGIG&L 
AEOUOT)  THE  WOKLD 


TOUR  OF  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

'hen  the  children  of  Israel  had  camped 
in  the  wilderness  of  Paran,  the  Lord 
directed  that  men  should  be  sent  to  search 
the  land  of  Canaan.  They  were  to  make 
their  way  northward  into  the  mountain- 
ous district,  to  "see  the  land,  what  it 
is ;  and  the  people  that  dwelleth  therein, 
whether  they  be  strong  or  weak,  few  or  many ;  and 
wliat  the  land  is  that  they  dwell  in,  whether  it  be  good 
or  bad  ;  and  what  cities  they  be  that  they  dwell  in, 
whether  in  tents  or  in  strong  holds."  Moreover, 
they  were  directed  to  be  of  good  courage,  and  to 
bring  of  the  fruit  of  the  land.  After  forty  days  the 
messengers  returned  to  the  congregation  at  Kadesh, 
bringing  their  figs  and  pomegranates  and  huge  cluster 
of  the  grapes  of  Eshcol.  All  but  two  of  them  had  a 
very  discouraging  story  to  tell.  The  land,  which  God 
had  promised  their  fathers,  was  one  indeed  that  "  flowed 
with  milk  and  honey,"  but  there  were  so  many  giants, 
the  children  of  Anak,  and  the  cities  were  so  strongly 
walled,  it  seemed  to  them  a  hopeless  task  to  endeavor 
to  take  possession.  These  false  reporters  forgot  the 
almighty  power  of  their  Divine  Leader,  and  the  many 
proofs  He  had  given  them  since  their  sojourn  in  Egypt 
that  He  was  fully  equal  to  every  emergencv  that  could 


12  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

be  encountered  by  His  chosen  people.  They  had  not 
yet  learned  the  lesson  that  ''  man's  extremities  are  God's 
opportunities."  But  Caleb  and  Joshua,  those  other 
messengers,  retained  their  confidence  in  their  Lord, 
even  while  surveying  those  walled  cities  and  enumera- 
ting those  giants  of  Canaan.  Acquainted,  as  they  were, 
with  the  fulfilment  of  so  much  prophecy,  and  monu- 
ments themselves  of  the  delivering  mercies  of  God, 
they  could  only  still  the  people,  and  subsequently  rend 
their  clothes  in  indignation  at  the  murmurings  of  the 
congregation,  and  insist  as  the  only  trustworthy  report 
of  their  promised  Canaan  —  ''The  land,  which  we  passed 
through  to  search  it,  is  an  exceeding  good  land.  If  the 
Lord  delio:ht  in  us,  then  he  will  brino-  us  into  this  land, 
and  give  it  us  ;  a  land  which  floweth  with  milk  and 
honey.  Only  rebel  not  ye  against  the  Lord,  neither 
fear  ye  the  people  of  the  land ;  for  they  are  bread  for 
us  ;  their  defence  is  departed  from  them,  and  the  Lord 
is  with  us  :  fear  them  not." 

In  the  providence  of  God  it  has  been  the  privilege  of 
the  writer  of  this  book  to  be  for  the  last  two  years  a 
searcher  in  many  of  the  lands  of  the  world,  which  God 
has  promised  to  evangelical  missions.  With  my  family, 
it  has  l:>een  my  delight,  during  this  time  and  previously, 
to  make  quite  thorough  exploration,  not  simply  into  the 
little  territory  of  Palestine,  but  throughout  Japan  and 
China,  Siam  and  Burmah,  Hindostan  and  Asiatic  Tur- 
key ;  Greece,  European  Turkey  and  Russia ;  Italy, 
Austria  and  France ;  Germany,  Switzerland  and  other 
portions  of  Europe ;  besides  visiting  to  some  extent 
Persia  and  Arabia,  many  isles  of  the '  sea,  various 
unevangelized  regions  of  America,  and  several  peoples 
of  the  grandl}"  opening  continent  of  Africa.  This 
extensive  range  of  travel  has  brought  me  into  contact 
with  representatives  of  the  populations  and  religions 
and  Christian  missions  of  almost  all  the  remaining  parts 
of  the  world,  so  that  opportunity  at  least  has  been 
equal  to  a  very  comprehensive  and  reliable  report  from 
all  that  Canaan  of  the  unevangelized  world,  which  God 
has  promised  yet  to  bestow  upon  his  spiritual  Israel. 


SEARCHING    THE    PROMISE    LANDS.  13 

This  report  it  will  be  our  endeavor  to  make,  influenced 
largely  by  the  Master's  words,  ''  Unto  w^homsoever 
much  is  given,  of  him  shall  be  much  required." 

That  our  story  is  of  lands,  all  of  which  God  has 
promised  as  the  heritage  of  his  people,  is  as  plain  as 
revelation  can  make  it.  The  pessimist  has  no  support 
at  all  among  the  evangelical  predictions  of  Holy  Writ. 
He  may  have  allowed  himself,  from  partial  views  of 
current  events  throughout  the  world,  to  be  discouraged 
over  the  ultimate  universal  triumph  of  the  Gospel  in 
the  use  of  the  ordinary  means  of  Grace,  and  then  he 
may  have  fancied  that  he  has  successfully  tortured 
Scripture  into  an  encouragement  of  his  despondency ; 
but  the  clear-headed  and  untrammelled  reader  of  God's 
Word  finds  nothing  there  except  assurance  that  this 
conflict,  which  the  Church  under  Emmanuel  is  Avaging 
with  the  world,  is  to  go  on  from  victory  to  victory,  until 
all  mankind  shall  acknowledge  their  allegiance  to  Jesus 
Christ.  Through  the  Sacred  Oracle  "  the  voice  still 
crieth  in  the  wilderness  " — ''Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the 
Lord,  make  straight  in  the  desert  a  highway  for  our 
God.  Every  valley  shall  l)e  exalted,  and  every  moun- 
tain and  hill  shall  be  made  low :  and  the  crooked  shall 
be  made  straight,  and  the  rough  places  plain.  And  the 
glory  of  the  Lord  shall  be  revealed,  and  all  flesh  shall 
see  it  together :  for  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken 
it."  Plainer  words  could  not  ])e  written  than  those  of 
the  prophet  Habakkuk  — ''  the  earth  shall  be  filled  Avith 
the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  as  the  waters 
cover  the  sea."  That  was  a  triumphant  prediction  of 
the  psalmist  —  "All  the  ends  of  the  world  shall  remem- 
ber and  turn  unto  the  Lord  :  and  all  the  kindreds  of  the 
nations  shall  worship  before  thee."  The  Lord  declares 
through  Isaiah  —  "I  said  not  unto  the  seed  of  Jacob, 
Seek  ye  me  in  vain."  And  again  —  ''I  have  sworn  by 
myself,  the  word  is  gone  out  of  my  mouth  in  righteous- 
ness, and  shall  not  return.  That  unto  me  every  knee 
shall  bow,  and  every  tongue  shall  swear." 

If  disposed  I  might  fill  a  volume  with  description  of 
only  the  great  walled  cities  and  the  myriad  giants,  chil- 


14  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

dren  of  Anak,  that  are  to  be  met  on  almost  every  hill 
and  in  nearly  every  valley  and  plain  of  this  vast  promise 
land.  There  is  abundant  material  for  intimidation  and 
discouragement,  if  only  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
world-evangelization  be  considered,  and  the  wings  of 
faith  be  folded,  and  the  thoughts  be  permitted  to  grovel 
among  only  earth-born  plans  and  methods  and  instru- 
mentalities and  efficiencies.  From  the  standpoint  of 
the  world  it  is  dispiriting  to  see  the  strong  hold  which 
materialism  is  taking  upon  the  newly  educated  masses, 
in  "the  empire  of  the  rising  Sun."  It  is  depressing  to 
note  the  revival  within  Buddhism  under  the  efforts  of 
its  most  intelligent  and  liberal  leaders  to  bring  their 
followers  more  abreast  with  the  spirit  of  the  age.  It  is 
discouraging  to  become  acquainted  with  the  vast  under- 
lying superstition  of  the  Fung-shway,  which  makes  the 
hostility  of  China's  four  hundred  millions  to  all  evangel- 
izins:  efforts  of  the  Christian  Church  the  more  firm  and 
abiding.  So  is  it,  when  through  Hindu  and  Moslem 
countries  we  go  searching  in  the  spirit  of  those  false 
spies,  who  accompanied  Caleb  and  Joshua,  and  see  in 
the  former  the  unutterable  depths  of  the  degradation  of 
Brahminism,  and  in  the  latter  the  accumulating  evidence 
that  Mahometan  bigotry  and  fanaticism  are  preparing, 
like  Rome,  for  a  new  lease  of  aggressive  power  under  a 
general  change  of  political  circumstances.  Or  if  turn- 
ing from  these  great  walled  cities  to  the  children  of 
Anak,  the  giant  personal  difficulties  to  be  still  encoun- 
tered, even  in  our  own  day,  by  those  who  enter  upon 
the  work  of  Christian  missions,  we  might  write  a  book 
that  would  not  be  an  unfit  companion  for  "  Fox's  Book 
of  Martyrs."  It  is  still  hard  to  sever  the  ties  of 
home,  to  leave  the  native  land,  to  reside  in  severe 
climates  without  constitutional  fitness,  and  to  be 
compelled  to  eat  food  without  relish.  It  is  still 
difficult  to  learn  a  foreign  language  so  as  to  make 
it  the  medium  of  the  most  accurate  thought,  where- 
with is  to  be  decided  the  destiny  of  immortal 
souls.  It  remains  as  painful  as  ever  to  live  and 
labor   among    the   wretched,    the    degraded,    the    big- 


A    CALEB   REPORT.  15 

otedly  superstitious  and  the  blindly  fanatic.  No  words 
can  describe  the  depression  of  spirit  that  comes  at 
times  to  nearl}^  all  missionaries,  in  their  isolation  from 
kindred  sympathies,  their  remoteness  from  all  congenial 
associations,  and  their  frequent  evidence  that  the  great 
work,  to  which  they  have  given  their  lives,  has  not  the 
support  of  the  prayers  and  the  contributions  of  one 
third  of  the  Christian  Church.  The  tears  are  just  as 
big  and  scalding,  as  in  the  earlier  days  of  missions, 
when  parents  have  to  send  their  little  children  home  to 
be  reared  and  educated  in  a  more  healthy  clime,  and 
in  a  purer  moral  atmosphere.  The  graves  are  much 
more  frequently  dug  in  those  far-oif  lands.  Companion- 
less  husbands,  widows  and  orphans,  they  multiply  with 
saddening  rapidity  among  the  families  of  missionaries. 
And  how  many  there  are,  who  must,  as  is  generally  sup- 
posed, be  buried  at  sea.  But  it  is  not  our  purpose  to 
fill  these  pages  with  stories  of  the  special  trials  and  dis- 
couragements and  perils  of  missionary  life,  any  more 
than  to  dwell  unduly  upon  the  immensity  of  the  labors 
to  be  performed.  We  come  to  our  task  in  the  spirit  of 
Caleb  and  Joshua.  We  have  only  a  jo3^ful  report  to 
render.  There  is  encouragement  all  along  the  line.  A 
journey  around  the  world  but  confirms  the  conviction 
that  Christ  is  the  need  of  all  nations  ;  that  every  world- 
religion  represents  merely  the  unsatisfied  aspirations  of 
human  hearts ;  and  that  Christianity  alone  reveals  the 
yearning  of  God  and  the  satisfaction  of  man. 

From  the  gardens  and  vineyards  of  over  a  thousand 
missionaries,  whose  work  in  all  its  various  details  we 
have  been  permitted  largely  a  personal  examination,  we 
shall  endeavor  to  bring  for  Christians  of  all  denomina- 
tions figs  and  pomegranates  and  grapes  of  Eshcol  in 
abundance.  We  have  found  that  each  of  the  prominent 
divisions  of  the  Church  Universal  has  under  successful 
cultivaticm  portions  of  the  great  field  of  our  common 
Lord,  and  the  principles  and  methods  and  results  of 
their  husbandry  need  to  be  knovv^n  by  all  of  whatever 
denomination,  who  are  fellow-servants  of  the  Great 
Husbandman.     A  familiarity  with  Christian  missions  to- 


16  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

day  is  a  liberal  education.  It  is  thus  in  geography,  in 
history,  in  philology,  in  ethnology,  in  political  econ- 
omy, and  in  international  law.  But  no  one  can  secure 
this  education,  if  he  takes  within  his  range  only  the 
missionary  operations  conducted  under  the  superinten- 
dency  of  that  branch  of  the  Church  to  which  he  imme- 
diately belongs.  He  must  understand  the  power  and 
movements  of  all  the  other  corps  of  the  grand  army. 
He  is  at  liberty  to  give  his  special  sympathies  and  co- 
operations to  w^hatever  part  of  Emmanuel's  forces,  he 
deems  to  be  under  the  strictest  discipline  and  the  most 
truly  organized  under  the  instructions  of  the  Word  of 
God ;  but  he  must  be  far  more  comprehensive  in  his 
information ;  his  thoughts  must  take  in  a  much  more 
extensive  range  of  application  and  combination  and 
result,  if,  Avith  all  that  it  involves,  he  is  to  be  thor- 
oughly intelligent  upon  the  subject  of  modern  world 
evangelization. 

It  w^as  with  this  conviction  that  we  turned  aside  from 
a  ten  ^^ears'  delightful  ministry  with  a  Providence  church, 
and  entered  upon  the  realization  of  a  long  cherished 
purpose  —  the  personal  study  of  the  utility  and  compar- 
ative methods  of  the  Christian  missions  of  the  various 
denominations  and  countries.  It  may  be  that  Professor 
Christlieb  of  Germany  is  right,  Avhen,  in  his  little  book 
entitled  "The  Foreign  Missions  of  Protestantism,"  he 
declares :  "  A  systematic  comparison  of  missionary 
methods  is  at  present  not  practicable,  inasmuch  as  the 
great  proportion  of  the  necessary  material  has  not  been 
gathered."  It  is  quite  possible  that  more  of  this  pre- 
paratory work  has  been  done  than  this  able  defender  of 
evangelical  faith  appreciates.  A  more  extensive  ac- 
quaintance particularly  with  American  and  English  and 
Scotch  missions,  their  home  management,  their  foreign 
laborers,  and  the  history  upon  many  different  fields  of 
various  experiments,  would  convince  the  careful  ob- 
server that  there  is  considera])le  material  already  on 
hand  for  the  construction  of  "  a  science  of  missions." 
Of  course  neither  this  nor  any  other  science  can  be 
expected  to  appear  at  once  in  a  state  of  full  develop- 


OPPORTUNITIES    FOR   INFORMATION.  17 

ment.  Additional  experience  and  investigation  will 
continue  to  bring  their  data  to  this  department  of  prac- 
tical theology. 

The  position  for  observation,  which  we  have  occupied, 
has  been  very  favorable  to  the  formation  of  independent 
and  unbiassed  judgments,  and  to  the  collection  of  such 
facts  as  will  be  of  service  to  the  Christian  Church. 
Provided  with  cordial  credentials  from  Secretaries  of  all 
the  leading  Foreign  Missionary  Societies  of  America, 
we  went  out  on  this  around  the  world  tour  of  Christian 
missions  quite  independently,  at  our  own  expense,  and 
untrammelled  by  any  commissions,  that  would  confine 
special  inquiries  to  given  localities,  and  enlist  here  and 
there  the  interest  and  sj^mpathy  irrespective  of  the 
actual  merits  of  the  case.  A  few  eminent  brethren  of 
different  denominations  have  within  the  last  fifteen  years 
circumnavigated  the  globe  upon  the  line  of  their  own 
ecclesiastical  relations,  but  their  responsibilities  have 
been  so  pressing  both  at  home  and  upon  the  way,  as 
necessarily  to  limit  their  field  of  investigation,  and  to 
give  them  but  partial  vicAvs  of  the  principles,  methods 
and  results  of  the  work  of  other  missions  than  their 
own.  They  have  gone,  too,  rather  in  the  character  of 
overseers  and  instructors  than  of  spectators  and  learners. 
Their  business  has  been  to  set  thins^s  to  riofhts,  to  com- 
municate  fresh  instructions  from  the  home  executive 
committees,  and  to  give  advice  with  respect  to  retrench- 
ment or  enlargement  of  expenditure.  We  believe  it 
would  be  well  for  every  missionary  society  to  send  a 
Secretary,  or  one  or  more  of  its  Board  of  management, 
at  least  every  ten  years  to  spend  a  few  days  in  visiting 
each  of  its  mission  stations  throughout  the  world. 
Much  added  qualification  for  official  duty  would  thus  be 
secured,  the  interests  of  the  foreign  and  the  home 
work  in  evangelization  would  be  brought  nearer  to- 
gether, and  greater  advance  would  be  made  in  leading 
men  to  a  saving  knowledge  of  the  Gospel.  No  doubt  the 
time  will  come  when  this  will  generally  be  considered 
one  of  the  Avisest  possible  modes  of  expenditure  for  a 
portion  of  the  funds  raised  for  mission  purposes.     At 


18  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

the  same  time  other  and  more  independent  lines  of  com- 
nmnication  are  required  between  the  home  churches  and 
foreign  stations.  Pastors  and  laymen,  and  christian 
women  also,  of  intelligence  and  discrimination  and  large 
experience  should  occasionally  make  their  foreign  jour- 
neys to  the  missions  of  the  great  heathen  world,  rather 
than  to  London,  Paris  and  Switzerland.  They  should 
go  at  their  own  appointment  and  expense,  go  with  a 
little  assistance  to  those  whose  hospitality  they  might 
otherwise  strain,  go  with  eyes  open  to  see  everything, 
with  dispositions  to  he  instructed  by  the  missionaries, 
many  of  whom  are  vastly  better  acquainted  with  the 
work  than  the  most  popular  preacher  or  the  most  genei- 
ous  layman  at  home.  Go,  too,  more  a  Christian,  than 
a  churchman  or  a  sectarian,  reminded  beforehand  that 
these  lines  are  not  so  distinct  with  the  evangelizing 
laborers  anions:  the  thousand  millions  of  the  heathen 
world,  as  in  the  midst  of  the  religious  and  educational 
and  social  institutions  of  America.  Not  that  the  vari- 
eties of  opinion  upon  questions  of  form  and  ceremony 
and  church  o^overnment  do  not  continue  to  exist  amon<? 
our  foreign  missionaries,  but  it  is  very  evident  that  they 
do  not  find  as  many  difficulties,  as  we  do  at  home,  to 
practical  co-operation. 

In  earnestly  recommending  trans-Pacilic  instead  of 
trans- Atlantic  excursions  for  American  christians,  we 
speak  from  our  own  experience.  Fourteen  years  ago  I 
visited,  wdth  my  wife,  Egypt,  Palestine  and  nearly  all  the 
countries  of  Europe.  It  was  indeed  delightful  to  sail  up 
the  Nile  ;  to  stand  upon  the  great  pyramid ;  to 'tread  all 
the  paths  the  Saviour  trod  from  Bethlehem  to  Nazareth, 
and  from  Capernaum  to  Jerusalem  ;  and  then  to  study  all 
the  various  advanced  European  civilizations  of  our  own 
time  ;  to  look  at  their  world  of  beaut}^  in  architecture 
and  upon  canvas ;  to  see  how  they  make  marble  speak, 
how  they  assist  nature  in  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  and 
the  ornamentation  of  the  landscape,  and  how^  variously 
they  apply  all  the  beautiful  arts  to  industry.  We  did 
not  know  how  foreign  travel  could  be  made  more  inter- 
esting:.    But  we  have  learned  better  since.     The  river 


ASIA   VEKSUS   EUROPE.  19 

of  salvation,  flowing  through  heathen  lands,  has  more 
to  attract  the  visitor  than  Egypt's  golden  stream.  More 
interesting  than  Bethlehem  is  the  place  wherever 
Christ  is  being  l)orn  again  daily  in  human  hearts  among 
Buddhists  and  Hindus  and  ^loslems  and  Fetichists  and 
Romanists  and  Infidels.  More  thrilling  than  to  stand 
upon  Olivet,  from  whence  the  Redeemer  ascended  on 
high,  is  it  to  witness  his  coming  again  in  convicting  and 
converting  power  through  the  wonderful  eflBcacy  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  Japanese  and  Chinese,  to  Indians  and 
Arabians,  to  Africans  and  dwellers  upon  the  remote  isles 
of  the  sea.  And  of  more  real  benefit  than  European 
cultivation  in  art,  is  that  broadening  of  our  s\Tnpathies 
and  enlarging  of  our  philanthropies  which  comes  from 
thorough  personal  acquaintance  with  the  foreign  mission 
cause.  The  rapid  advance  of  Japanese  civilization ;  the 
strange  superstitious  conservatism  of  China  ;  the  races 
and  dynasties  and  architectures  of  India  ;  and  the  geog- 
raphy and  political  prospects  of  Africa  —  in  these  direc- 
tions there  is  more  to  attract  the  research  of  American 
thought,  than  along  the  beaten  tracks  of  European 
travel.  And  when  there  is  added  the  christian's  special 
interest  in  the  salvation  of  his  fellow-men,  and  he  re- 
members that  there  are  twenty  times  as  many  souls 
in  these  countries  as  in  his  own  America,  or  three  times 
as  many  as  in  all  Christendom,  he  will  realize  that  his 
time  and  money  in  foreign  touring  can  be  much  more 
profita])ly  spent  Westward  than  Eastward. 

We  recall  two,  among  many  other  instances,  w^here 
transient  visits  from  the  home  land  have  resulted  in 
incalculable  benefit  to  the  mission  stations.  The  one 
was  from  a  regularly  delegated  officer  from  the  mission- 
ary Board  at  home.  In  his  place  of  supervisor  and 
counsellor,  it  seemed  to  him  duty,  upon  one  occasion, 
to  suggest  and  urge  upon  his  brethren,  at  a  most  im- 
portant centre  of  christian  labor,  a  course  of  procedure 
against  which  they  all  were  very  reluctant.  But  years 
have  proved  that  this  very  modification  has  rendered 
that  mission  tenfold  the  more  eflfective.  At  another 
point  in  Asia  the  work  was  considered  so  discouraging 


20  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

by  the  home  authorities,  that  it  was  determined  at  the 
first  practicable  opportunity  to  abandon  it.  But  in  the 
providence  of  God  a  christian  brother,  well  known  and 
influential,  yet  Avithout  any  delegated  authority,  came 
alona:  upon  a  casual  tourist's  visit.  He  saw  the  situa- 
tion, if  not  with  clearer  eyes,  certainly  with  fiir  greater 
advantages  for  accuracy  and  reliable  judgment,  and  he 
concluded  that  it  was  not  an  open  question  whether  that 
station  should  be  reinforced  and  the  work  pressed  on 
with  greater  vigor.  His  representations  were  success- 
ful in  correcting  the  misjudgment  at  home,  and  one  of 
the  largest  and  most  encouraging  fields  in  all  Asia  for 
missionary  labor  has  been  saved  to  gladden  the  heart  of 
the  Church  of  to-day.  Moreover,  such  visitation  does 
good  not  only  by  way  of  information  and  counsel,  but 
the  little  taste  of  social  life,  right  fresh  from  the  native 
land,  brought  to  the  lonely  missionary  home,  is  un- 
speakably welcome  and  wonderfully  helpful.  Many  of 
them  have  told  me  that  such  an  occasional  break  in  their 
life  puts  them  on  their  feet  again  for  a  whole  year  of 
their  plodding  toil.  Others  have  expressed  it  that  a  few 
hours  of  new  faces  from  the  fatherland  are  more  useful 
than  the  gladly  received  boxes,  that  come  occasionally 
freighted  with  food  and  clothing,  and  the  luxuries  which 
no  missionary's  salary  can  afford.  Repeatedly  has  it 
been  said  to  us  :  "All  your  expenditure  of  time  and 
money  in  this  around  the  world  tour  of  christian 
missions  has  paid  simply  in  our  homes  and  in  our 
mission  ;  and  we  wish  you  would  appreciate  it,  and  im- 
press the  fact  upon  other  ministers  and  laymen,  who 
may  be  induced  to  follow  your  example." 

We  feel  very  glad  that,  before  sailing  from  San 
Francisco,  we  had  opportunity  to  see  a  great  deal  of 
the  home  missionary  work  in  America.  Indeed  it  was 
my  privilege  early  in  the  ministry  to  engage  for  some 
years  in  this  department  of  evangelization.  It  is  a 
grand  school,  not  only  for  those  who  would  see  more  in- 
telligently, but  also  for  those  who  would  engao-e  person- 
ally in  foreign  missionary  work.  Immigration  and  the 
neglect  of  God's  people  have  brought  a  Large  variety  of 


THE   HOME    WORK.  21 

heathen  to  our  very  doors.  What  means  are  proving 
the  most  effective  in  the  work  of  christianizing  them? 
What  phases  of  adaptability  are  they  manifesting  to 
rehgious  impressions?  How  does  it  appear  that  they 
are  best  guarded  from  relapsing  into  their  old  bigotry 
or  superstition  or  indifference?  It  would  be  well  for 
any  Christian  tourist,  before  visiting  Asia  or  Africa,  to 
become  acquainted  with  these  and  other  elements  of  the 
missionary  problem  at  home,  in  the  great  cities,  among 
the  negro  population  of  the  South,  in  the  newly  settled 
regions  of  the  West,  and  among  the  Eocky  Mountains 
and  the  Sierra  Nevadas.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  one 
of  the  wisest  things  that  could  be  done  with  all  appli- 
cants for  foreign  missionary  appointments  would  be  to 
give  them  a  preliminary  trial  of  two  or  three  years  in 
home  missionary  labor.  Let  them  try  it  in  some  ragged 
school,  or  freedman's  institute,  or  Chinese  settlement. 
It  would  not  be  lost  time  to  those  who  are  really  called 
of  God  to  the  far-off  lands  of  heathendom.  Their  con- 
victions of  duty  would  be  strengthened.  Their  qualifi- 
cations would  be  evidenced  and  increased.  And,  if 
from  the  northern  states  they  should  go  for  their  pro- 
bation to  the  extreme  southern  portions  of  our  country, 
they  will  learn,  at  but  little  comparative  cost  to  the 
mission  treasury,  and  with  little  comparative  risk  to 
their  own  lives,  whether  they  may  reasonably  indulge 
the  expectation  of  becoming  acclimated  either  in  Asia 
or  Africa.  Doubtless  some,  who  are  now  in  those  far- 
off  lands,  incapacitated  by  poor  health,  or  dissatisfied 
with  the  work  they  have  found  to  do,  or  known  to  all 
their  associates  as  incompetent  for  their  responsibilities, 
would  have  been  kept  back  from  so  costly  and  risky  an 
experiment,  if  they  could  have  first  been  tried  in  home 
mission  labors.  We  would  not  lower  the  standard  of 
qualification  for  those  who  are  to  minister  to  the  poor 
and  degraded  in  America.  Our  Irish  and  German  im- 
mio^rants  and  southern  freedmen  need  as  o:ood  mission- 
aries  as  the  Japanese,  or  Hindus,  or  Malayans,  but  it  is 
so  much  easier  all  around  to  deal  with  the  question  of 
qualification  at  home. 


22  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Nowhere  in  all  the  world  can  one  travel  to-day,  and 
escape  the  missionary  question.  We  have  reached  the 
period  of  universal  missions.  It  is  no  longer  as  in  the 
first  centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  when  evangelization 
confined  its  labors  mostly  to  the  civilized  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean.  Nor  is  it  as  in  mediaeval  times,  when 
the  advance  was  simply  northward  into  Europe ;  nor 
yet  again  as  in  either  the  sixth  or  sixteenth  centuries, 
when  christianizing  efibrts  were  directed  eastward  into 
Asia.  It  is  an  age  of  world-wide  mission  activity,  a 
time  of  universal  evangelization.  At  the  opening  of  the 
present  century  there  were  some  feeble  and  discouraging 
eiforts  made  by  Americans  and  Moravians  among  the 
North  American  Indians,  a  few  prosperous  fields  culti- 
vated by  the  Moravians  and  the  Wesleyans  in  the  West 
Indies  and  Surinam,  a  few  stations  far  from  flourishing 
planted  by  the  Dutch  in  Ceylon  and  the  Moluccas,  by 
the  Halle-Danish  Society  in  East  India,  and  a  small 
number  of  others  established  by  the  NorAvegio-Swedish 
Society  in  Lapland,  by  the  Moravians,  Norwegians  and 
Danes  in  Greenland  and  Labrador,  and  also  by  the 
Moravians  at  the  extreme  south  of  Africa. 

Eighty-one  years  have  passed,  and  what  a  bewilder- 
ingly  rapid  march  of  events  toward  the  christianization 
of  all  mankind  !  The  oflScial  opposition  in  India  has 
been  overcome,  and  a  glorious  host  of  missionaries  from 
all  christian  lands  and  from  all  divisions  of  the  Church 
Universal  have  pressed  forward,  and  to-day  they  occupy 
a  great  number  of  strongly  fortified  positions  all  the  way 
from  Ceylon  to  the  Himalayas,  and  from  the  mouths  of 
the  Ganges  to  the  vale  of  Cashmere.  China,  whose 
gates  were  so  long  barred  to  the  messenger  of  the  cross, 
has  now  a  goodl}'  company  of  missionaries  scattered 
among  its  hundreds  of  millions  of  population,  all  along 
the  lines  from  Canton  to  Peking,  and  from  Shanghai  to 
Han-Kow.  Burman  missions  have  fired  the  christian 
heart  of  the  world.  The  Siamese  court  patronizes  the 
representatives  of  our  churches.  Japan  has  many 
stations,  clustering  especially  in  the  neighborhoods  of 
its   eastern    and  western   capitals,    and    at  the    latter 


ADVANCE    OF    PRESENT    CENTURY.  23 

place,  the  Rome  of  the  Mikado's  empire,  the  Con- 
gregationalists  can  point  with  pride  to  their  training 
school,  where  a  hundred  natives  are  preparing  for  the 
ministry.  Over  the  territory  of  Islam  from  Constanti- 
nople to  Baghdad,  and  from  Persia  to  Egypt,  heroic 
missionaries  are  lifting  up  the  Cross  before  the  Crescent, 
and  are  exerting  more  mighty  and  permanent  influences 
than  did  the  crusaders  against  the  Saracens.  On  all 
sides  Africa  is  being  assaulted  in  the  name  of  Emmanuel. 
English,  Scotch  and  American  forces  are  pressing  in 
from  the  north.  At  the  south  gigantic  operations  are 
being  carried  on  by  English,  Scotch,  American,  Ger- 
man, Dutch,  French  and  Scandinavian  societies.  Upon 
the  west,  stations  have  ])een  occupied  all  the  way  from 
Senegal  to  the  Congo  by  British,  Basel  and  Bremen 
missionaries.  On  the  east  there  are  already  the  strong 
evano^ehzino:  entrenchments  of  Madao^ascar,  and  throuo^h- 
out  the  interior,  where  Livingstone  led  the  way,  a  con- 
stant advance  of  Scottish,  English  and  American 
missions.  Soldiers  of  the  cross  are  found  to-day  all 
along  the  western  coast  of  South  America,  and  at 
many  points  of  the  interior  and  east  of  that  great  con- 
tinent so  long  held  back  by  barbarism,  Spanish  mis- 
rule and  papal  bigotry.  The  West  Indies,  the  isles  of 
the  Pacific,  the  Indian  Archipelago,  including  Sumatra, 
Java,  Borneo,  Celebes  and  New  Guinea,  Mexico,  and 
all  the  vast  missionary  territories  of  both  Europe  and 
our  own  continent  are  showing  the  evidences  of  modern 
christian  enterprise,  the  dawn  of  the  day  of  universal 
missions. 

Many  travellers  would  like  to  escape  these  facts,  but 
they  cannot.  Many  at  home,  who  are  not  in  sympathy 
with  evangelical  missionary  Christianity,  more  success- 
ful in  making  their  wishes  father  to  their  thoughts,  seem 
totally  blind  to  the  fact  that  with  bewildering  rapidity 
the  whole  world  is  becoming  Christian.  They  remind, 
as  it  has  been  suggested,  of  statues  in  public  and  private 
parks,  from  which  the  water  streams  into  the  air,  where 
it  divides  into  countless  drops,  that  sparkle  beautifully 
for  a  iiiOinent  in  the  sunlight,  and  then  return  to  eyes 


24  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

that  see  nothing  of  their  beauties,  and  to  forms  that  are 
utterly  unfeeling.  To  the  intelligent  and  well-informed 
believer  in  Christ  all  the  deliverances  of  truth,  all  the 
verities  of  science,  all  the  teachings  of  history,  all  the 
movements  among  men  shine  forth  most  beautifully  in 
the  sunlight  of  Divine  revelation,  despite  the  sightless 
eyes  and  unfeeling  hearts  of  an  unbelieving  world. 
That  revelation  promises  universal  conquest  to  the 
Christian  Church.  On  all  sides  the  signs  of  the  times 
point  to  the  fulfilment  of  such  prophecy.  The  plan  of 
Emmanuel's  campaign  is  evidently  to  conquer  the  whole 
world.  Otherwise  many  movements  upon  many  por- 
tions of  the  field  are  inexplicable.  Otherwise  the 
major  part  of  the  preparation  that  has  been  going  on 
through  the  centuries  is  al)surd.  We  cannot  mistake 
the  sun  that  shines  at  mid-day  in  a  clear  summer  sky ; 
we  cannot  mistake  the  evidence  that  bathes  the  whole 
round  world  in  its  glowing  light  that  the  age  of  univer- 
sal missions,  on  which  we  have  entered,  will  ultimately 
be  crowned  by  the  universal  triumph  of  Christianity. 


BALANCE    OF    TRADE    AND   KESPONSIBILITY.  25 


CHAPTER   I. 

NEW  YORK  WESTWARD. 

HILE  crossing  upon  the  ferry  from  New 
York  to  the  Jersey  City  railway  station, 
we  saw  down  the  harbor  a  number  of  fresh 
arrivals  of  ocean  steamers.  One  of  the 
Cunard  Line  was  just  in  from  Liverpool, 
her  very  form  seeming  to  give  expression 
to  the  company's  pride  at  so  much  success- 
ful navigation  upon  the  stormy  xltlantic.  A  fit  com- 
panion steamer  of  the  Inman  Line  was  slowly  swinging 
its  lono:  oTaceful  hull  into  its  berth  for  the  landino^  of 
passengers  and  the  loading  of  cargo.  There  were  many 
passengers,  but  the  screw  was  a  third  out  of  water, 
showing  that  only  a  little  freight  could  have  been 
brought  from  over  the  sea.  Fortunate  is  America  in 
having  the  balance  of  trade  so  greatly  in  its  favor.  The 
carrying  facilities  of  the  world's  commerce  are  required 
to  come  largely  to  us  empty  or  in  ballast,  while  they 
leave  our  shores  almost  invariably  loaded  full  of  the 
surplus  products  of  our  soil  and  manufactories.  And 
what  responsibility  does  such  exceptional  wealth  and 
resource  place  upon  American  christians  with  regard 
to  world  evangelization  !  Our  brethren  neither  in  Great 
Britain  or  Europe  are  so  favorably  circumstanced  as 
ourselves  to  meet  the  expense  of  opening  up  the  new 
missions  at  present  imperatively  demanded  in  Asia  and 
Africa,  and  of  giving  them  the  assurance  of  a  generous 
and  effective  support. 

A  French  flag  was  flying  from  the  mast  of  another 
steamship,  perhaps  direct  from  Havre.  One  of  a  Ger- 
man line  was  getting  its  bearings  out  in  mid-channel  for 


26  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

departure,  it  may  have  been,  to  Bombay  via  the  Suez 
Canal.  One  steamer  showed  the  Brazilian  flag,  another 
the  Spanish,  and  still  another  the  Japanese.  And  there 
were  several  other  steamships  in  sight,  whose  story  was 
not  flung  to  the  breeze  from  the  masthead,  but  which 
may  be  engaged  in  either  the  West  Indies  or  the  Aus- 
tralian trades,  in  supplying  the  commercial  wants  of 
Cuba  or  Java,  of  Africa  or  China,  or  in  bringing  within 
the  fellowship  of  the  nations  the  widely  scattered  islands 
of  the  Pacific  and  the  other  vast  regions  of  the  Malayan 
Archipelago.  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  immensely 
developed  carrying  facilities  all  over  the  world  in  our 
day  ?  Commerce  alone  can  not  answer,  any  more  than 
it  could  have  told  at  the  opening  of  the  Christian  era, 
why  the  Greek  language  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
Roman  power  on  the  other  had  become  so  widely  known 
and  felt.  Trade  and  passenger  traffic  and  political  in- 
terests may  give  incidental  explanations,  but  the 
Almighty,  who  guides  and  controls  the  developments  of 
the  world,  has  supreme  reasons,  which  secular  thought 
cannot  fathom.  As  the  higher  meaning  of  the  exten- 
sive range  as  well  as  peculiar  quality  of  the  Greek 
language  was  to  embody  and  carry  with  the  utmost 
accuracy  and  facility  the  new  revelation  in  Christ's  per- 
son and  work  ;  and  as  the  inmost  reason  of  the  conjunc- 
tion of  Roman  imperial  sway  was  that  the  spread  of 
the  Gospel  might  be  the  more  rapid  and  eflectiA^e 
throughout  the  then  known  world ;  so,  not  in  yonder 
lofty  grain  elevators,  not  in  those  warehouses  with 
which  New  York  is  piercing  the  sky,  not  in  those  mam- 
moth wholesale  and  retail  stores  upon  Broadway,  is  to 
be  found  the  supreme  meaning  of  this  fleet  of  steamships, 
nor  the  grand  explanation  of  the  marvellous  develop- 
ment in  our  day  of  the  carrying  facilities  of  the  world. 
Christian  faith  has  the  secret.  The  spirit  of  the  Master 
with  his  people  tells  them  that  it  is  a  part  of  his  Father's 
business.  The  coincidences  with  mission  opportunities 
in  all  parts  of  the  unevangelized  world,  with  the  moving 
of  the  modern  missionary  spirit  in  all  branches  of  the 
Christian  church,  and  with  the  awakenino^  of  desire  on 


THE    SECRET   OF   COMMERCE.  27 

the  part  of  thousands  to  be  the  living  messengers  of  grace 
to  far-off  dying  men  of  every  clime  and  nation,  these  con- 
firm the  judgment  of  faith,  that  these  myriad  steamships 
and  railroad  lines  are  because  God  wants  to  use  them  in 
christianizing  this  world.  They  are  to  carry  the  mes- 
sengers of  the  cross,  to  take  them  back  and  forth  upon 
their  errands  of  matchless  philanthropy ;  this  vast  net- 
work of  interchano^ino^  facilities  is  for  the  dissemination 
of  christian  literature  and  of  all  christian  knowledge ; 
it  has  been  formed  not  so  much  to  help  man  amass  the 
wealth  of  this  world,  as  to  enable  him  to  lay  up  the 
imperishable  treasures  of  the  w^orld  to  come. 

Upon  the  same  train  with  us  was  a  goodly  company 
of  children  from  the  Little  Wanderers'  Home  in  New 
York.  They  were  in  charge  of  their  superintendent, 
and  were  being  taken  to  various  homes  in  the  Western 
States,  Avhich  had  spoken  for  them  and  furnished  the 
requisite  credentials.  How  kindly  he  addressed  them  ; 
how  tender  and  considerate ;  how  father-like  his  care 
of  them.  Many  of  them,  no  doubt,  in  their  own 
wretched  homes  had  never  heard  such  words  of  sympathy 
and  solicitude.  Assuredly  this  is  one  of  the  best 
departments  of  home  mission  work.  This  gathering  of 
children,  who  have  been  cast  adrift  upon  the  world  by 
misfortune  or  improvidence  or  vice ;  this  furnishing 
them  a  temporary  shelter  with  wise  conscientious 
christian  management ;  and,  then,  this  opening  of  heart 
on  the  part  of  thousands  of  homes  throughout  the  land, 
where  death  has  made  vacancies  or  the  marriage  relation 
has  not  borne  its  blessed  fruit,  it  is  a  beautiful  flower  in 
the  garden  of  the  Lord  ;  it  is  missionary  endeavor  that 
should  enlist  the  prayerful  sympathy  and  generous  sup- 
port of  all.  Every  city  and  large  town  should  have 
their  little  wanderers'  homes.  Their  work  is  in  such 
great  demand ;  and  then  it  is  so  Christ-like,  this  gather- 
ing of  lost  lambs  into  loving  arms. 

At  a  city  where  w^e  stopped  over  for  a  day,  one  of  the 
churches  was  having  a  fair  to  raise  money  for  city 
mission  purposes.  The  weather  was  not  very  favorable, 
but  that  is  one  of  the  contingencies  which  must  be  taken 


28  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

into  account  by  those  who  adopt  this  method  of  deal- 
ing with  the  Lord's  treasury.  The  workers  looked  very 
tired,  as  if  they  had  been  overworking  for  some  days 
past,  in  the  effort  to  turn  the  house  of  God  into  as  at- 
tractive a  store  as  possible.  The  prices  were  generally 
much  in  advance  of  those  in  the  market,  and  the  quality  of 
the  articles  furnished  mostly  inferior.  The  creams  and 
ices  were  little  better  than  sweetened  snow,  and  upon 
payment  the  lady  with  a  bland  smile  waited  for  us  to 
say,  ''Oh,  you  need  not  mind  the  change."  Though 
the  object  was  good,  we  could  not  help  feeling  that  we 
had  been  overreached  at  every  turn,  and  upon  the  last 
table  purposely  left  all  the  little  trinkets  Ave  had  bought 
without  any  intimation  of  their  OAvnership  or  destination. 
It  costs  too  much  for  churches  to  hold  fairs,  too  much  in 
time  and  Avorry  and  inconvenience  and  money  and 
christian  principle.  It  generally  requires  a  great  deal 
of  preaching  and  Sunday  school  Avork  and  legitimate 
religious  activity  throughout  a  parish,  to  counteract  the 
uuAvholesome  influence  of  a  church  fair.  Far  better  to 
meet  all  the  calls  of  benevolence  by  direct  contributions. 
Money  in  the  box  or  the  sul^scription  paper  is  the 
straight-forAvard  honest  Avay  of  dealing  Avith  the  Lord's 
treasury.  Division  into  Aveekly  offerings  for  a  month, 
or  a  quarter,  or  a  year  is  the  Avisest  plan  for  lightening 
the  load  of  a  large  contribution. 

Reaching  Ohio,  Ave  are  in  a  state  Avhere  many  brave 
battles  in  the  cause  of  temperance  have  been  fought. 
This  reform  Ave  believe  to  be  principally  a  question  of 
christian  home  mission  Avork.  Total  abstinence  societies 
and  prohibitory  legislation  may  render  A^aluable  aid, 
but  the  great  thing  after  all  is  to  secure  to  men  a 
sovereign  mastery  over  the  evil  passions  and  depraved 
appetites  of  their  sinful  natures.  The  temperance  pledge, 
the  red  ribbon  in  the  button-hole,  the  regalia  of  a 
good  templar  are  all  Avell  enough  in  their  place ;  but 
he  who  echoes  the  Avords  of  the  Divine  Master  to  all 
struggling  human  souls,  ''  Without  me  ye  can  do 
nothing,"  he  alone  has  in  hand  the  solution  of  the  tem- 
perance problem.     It  is  not  so  much  in  resolution,  and 


SONS    OF    THE    SEA.  29 

better  companionship,  and  the  removal  of  temptation, 
as  in  the  makino^  of  a  man  a  new  creature  in  Christ 
Jesus,  with  divinely  correct  principles  for  action,  and 
omnipotent  power  for  self-mastery.  The  salvation 
which  Christianity  proffers  is  not  intolerant  of  any  aid 
to  correct  livinsf  which  comes  from  without.  Some 
affirm  that  the  principle  of  total  abstinence  closes  the 
opportunity  of  free  self-restraint,  and  that  prohil)itory 
legislation  is  a  violation  of  natural  rights ;  but  if  one 
exercises  his  freedom  in  the  choice  of  total  abstinence 
as  the  plan  best  fitted  to  his  Hfe,  there  is  no  marring  of 
principle ;  nor  is  the  withholding  of  dangerous  tempta- 
tion so  much  a  restraint  upon  liberty  as  the  giving  of  a 
larger  freedom.  Good  morals,  like  locomotives,  work 
best  along  the  lines  of  well  adjusted  firm  restraints. 
Whoever  jumps  the  track  has  a  very  unsatisfactory  kind 
of  liberty. 

At  Cleveland,  we  noted,  what  pleased  us  more  than 
the  celebrated  magnificence  of  Euclid  Avenue,  a  good 
deal  of  systematic  christian  mission  work  among  the 
sailors.  There  was  the  well-appointed  hall  for  religious 
and  social  gatherings.  There  was  the  cheap,  but  clean 
and  comfortable  lodging-house,  where  sailors  ashore 
or  out  of  employment,  might  find  refuge  from  the  allur- 
ing haunts  of  immorality.  There  was  the  coffee-room, 
that  most  excellent  substitute  for  the  bar,  where  many 
out  of  the  wet  and  cold  Avere  harmlessly  satisfying 
nature's  common  demand  for  stimulant .  There  was  a  mis- 
sionary in  general  charge,  with  an  assistant;  and  all  be- 
tokened that  generosity  of  provision  and  wisdom  of  man- 
agement, which  characterize  very  many  of  the  christian 
enterprises  in  the  state  of  Ohio.  What  more  interest- 
ing class  than  sailors  among  whom  to  preach  the  gospel 
and  distribute  christian  charities?  They  number  a 
great  multitude,  gathered  largely  from  the  better  classes 
of  the  poorer  populations.  Their  life  at  sea  or  upon 
the  lakes  is  calculated  to  develop  the  more  sturdy  quali- 
ties of  manhood.  Accustomed  to  face  the  most  extreme 
perils,  that  may  arise  suddenly  at  any  time,  they  are 
familiar  with  the  thoughts  of  anticipation,  preparation, 


30  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

the  danger  of  little  neglects,  and  the  mysterious  guid- 
ance of  the  compass.  Those,  who  labor  among  them  in 
the  Lord,  speak  with  enthusiasm  of  the  hearty  greetings 
they  are  accustomed  to  receive,  of  the  generally  intelli- 
gent appreciation  of  their  words,  and  of  the  peculiar 
tender-heartedness  of  the  weather-bronzed  sons  of  the 
sea. 

Christian  labor-  among  the  sailors  finds  its  incentive 
both  in  the  interest  of  home  and  of  foreign  missions. 
Not  only  our  ports  and  thousands  of  homes  throughout 
the  land  would  be  blessed  by  the  evangelization  of  our 
seamen,  but  a  vastly  important  agency  would  be  created 
for  helping  to  carry  the  gospel  into  all  parts  of  the 
water-bounded  world.  Wherever  ships  go  sailors  must 
go.  None  are  more  frank  and  brave  in  the  expression 
of  convictions  and  opinions.  And  if  those  convictions 
were  based  upon  an  experimental  acquaintance  with  re- 
vealed truth,  and  if  those  opinions  were  in  accord  with 
the  prevailing  sentiments  of  the  Christian  Church,  what 
an  accession  of  strength  to  the  foreign  mission  force  of 
the  Kingdom  of  our  Lord.  It  costs  a  great  deal  of 
money  to  send  and  support  missionaries  in  far-off  lands. 
But  here  is  missionary  material  in  abundance,  for  whom 
our  Boards  need  never  pay  one  dollar  of  passenger  fare 
or  of  living  expense  in  foreign  lands.  Yet  by  the 
thousands  these  sailors  will  be  found  stopping  in  the 
ports  of  far-off  countries  for  considerable  portions  of 
every  year,  engaged  in  the  unloading  or  loading  of 
cargoes,  or  in  waiting  for  business.  We  have  seen  and 
heard  of  some  of  them,  loyal  soldiers  of  the  cross, 
using  their  various  opportunities  to  conquer  minds  and 
hearts  in  Emmanuel's  name.  We  have  listened  to  the 
songs  of  Zion  coming  up  from  the  forecastle,  or  sweep- 
ing the  deck  like  a  soft  breeze  from  heaven  at  evening 
watch.  With  gratitude  to  God  Ave  have  watched 
christian  sailors  gathering  around  them  companies  of 
eager  listeners,  and  then  with  Bibles,  which  perhaps 
their  mothers  gave  them,  reading  and  explaining  the 
story  of  salvation  through  the  crucified  Redeemer. 
Surely  here  is  very  available  material  for  the  use  of  the 


DENOMINATIONS.  31 

Christian  Church  in  her  obedience  to  the  great  commis- 
^.ion.  No  greater  obstacle  is  met  in  all  open  ports  by 
foreign  missionaries  at  the  present  time,  than  the  pre- 
vailing immorality  and  irreligion  of  the  sailors  from 
nominally  christian  lands.  Let  more  prayers  ascend 
and  more  earnest  eJSbrts  be  made  to  change  the  direction 
of  this  mighty  influence.  In  this  mine  are  jeAvels  of 
the  richest  lustre,  awaiting  the  Saviour'-s  crown. 

We  observe  in  passing  along  through  the  country 
many  little  villages  w4th  two  or  three,  and  even  four  and 
five  church  spires.  It  cannot  be  that  there  is  an  actual 
demand  for  so  much  seating  capacity  in  public  religious 
services.  The  frequently  adjoining  sheds  tell  in- 
deed of  many  farmers  and  their  families  in  the  con- 
o^reofation  from  surroundino:  districts.  But  even  then 
on  an  average  those  many  churches  are  not  probably 
over  half  full  on  the  sabbath.  It  is  a  very  difficult 
question ;  sometimes  one  cannot  help  thinking  how 
beautiful  it  would  be  if  all  professors  of  religion  be- 
longed to  his  branch  of  the  Christian  Church.  Then 
for  each  of  these  many  little  villages  there  would 
be  one  flock,  and  one  under-shepherd,  and  one  sanctuary 
fold.  Only  one  bell  would  sound  the  invitation  to  come 
to  the  house  of  God.  There  would  be  no  rivalries  of 
interest,  no  jarrings  of  opinions  and  parties,  no  difficul- 
ties in  raising  ministers'  salaries,  and  other  necessary 
expenses  for  home  or  foreign  work.  In  the  absence 
of  sectarian  controversy  there  would  be  only  harmony 
of  religious  views  and  general  co-operation  in  christian 
work.  Well,  perhaps  so,  and  perhaps  not.  Consti- 
tuted as  men  are.  and  imperfect  still  as  is  their  religious 
development  in  this  world,  it  may  be  that  denomina- 
tionalism  is  an  evil  that  in  the  mercy  of  God  shields  us 
from  a  greater  one.  It  may  be,  that  as  things  are  there 
i^  the  largest  measure  of  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  and 
of  the  bond  of  peace,  and  the  fullest  opportunity 
for  the  exercises  of  christian  charities  and  missionary 
enterprise.  The  other  day  we  examined  the  supporting 
piers  of  the  New  York  elevated  railway.  They  are  not 
solid  columns  of  iron.     The  plates  of  the  thin  but  strong 


32  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

metal  are  separated  from  ten  to  twenty  inches,  and  then 
connected  firmly  by  little  rivets,  or  small  strips  of  iron. 
This  is  the  well-known  principle  of  mechanical  science, 
which  civil  engineers  are  constantly  applying  in  the  con- 
struction of  bridges  and  the  supporting  of  other  heavy 
weights.  The  power  of  support  of  a  given  quantity  of 
metal  is  thus  vastly  augmented.  It  is  probably  so 
with  the  present  arrangements  of  the  great  Architect 
of  the  Christian  Church.  He  is  perfectly  aware  of 
the  many  denominations  into  which  His  Universal 
Church  is  separated.  And  it  may  be,  yea,  we  think 
so,  though  it  savors  a  little  of  denominational  disloyalty, 
that,  as  at  present  constituted,  and  for  the  present 
period  in  the  history  of  our  world,  the  Christian  Church 
supports  with  the  greatest  safety  its  enormous  respon- 
sibilities. 

But  what  shall  be  done  with  the  over-supply  of 
church  buildings  in  the  small  villages  of  the  older 
settled  portions  of  our  country?  The  problem  must 
work  itself  out.  Some  think  it  is  very  clear  with  re- 
gard to  villages  in  the  newly  settled  districts.  First 
come,  first  served,  is  their  motto.  But  we  are  not  quite 
prepared  to  say,  that,  if  a  Dutch  Reformed  or  an 
Evano^elical  Lutheran  Church  has  the  start  in  an  oro:an- 
ization  and  building,  christian  courtesy  should  keep  the 
Episcopalians,  and  Baptists,  and  Methodists,  and  others 
out  from  the  exercise  of  their  convictions,  and  the 
enjoyment  of  their  cherished  privileges  for  all  time.  It 
is  an  aff"air  rather  for  compromise  or  arrangement  than 
for  pre-emption  and  exclusion.  Meanwhile  our  heart 
responds  most  earnestly  to  that  portion  of  Christ's  inter- 
cessory prayer  :  —  "  Holy  Father,  keep  through  thine 
own  name  those  whom  thou  hast  given  me,  that  they 
may  be  one,  as  we  are.  That  they  all  may  be  one  ;  as 
thou,  Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also 
may  be  one  in  us  ;  that  the  world  may  beUeve  that  thou 
hast  sent  me." 

Indeed,  what  a  great  country  is  this  through  which 
we  are  passing !  We  have  come  a  thousand  miles  from 
New  York,  and  yet  people  do  not  take  it  kindly  if  we 


PERMANENT    RESOURCES.  33 

speak  to  them  about  their  living  out  West.  They  talk 
of  the  New  Enorland  States,  as  in  the  New  Eng:land 
States  we  speak  of  Cape  Cod.  Long  since  multitudes 
of  Americans  have  settled  the  question  that  all  East  of 
the  Mississippi  river  is  East,  and  to  find  anything  West 
the  traveller  must  go  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
The  great  political  trial  of  many  is  that  Washington  is 
not  located  in  one  of  our  new  territories  or  latest  ad- 
mitted States.  Think  of  a  population  of  over  fifty 
millions  gathered  upon  our  section  of  this  youthful  con- 
tinent in  such  an  incredibly  short  period  of  time  !  One 
must  travel  long  distances  to  appreciate  the  accuracy  of 
such  statistics,  for  after  all  we  are  so  scattered  a  people. 
There  are  so  many  miles  between  cities  and  towns,  and 
often  between  even  farm-houses.  With  such  a  popula- 
tion, so  largely  given  to  agriculture,  and  with  such  im- 
mense area  of  virgin  soil,  what  enormous  poAver  we 
wield,  and  must  long  continue  to  wield,  over  the  finan- 
cial and  political  and  social  and  religious  life  of  the 
world  ! 

But  Englishmen  and  other  Europeans  are  saying  that 
our  enormous  developments  as  a  people,  and  many  at 
present  unquestionably  decided  advantages  as  Americans, 
are,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  to  soon  reach  their  limit. 
Indeed  they  predict  a  reaction,  when  our  soil  shall  have 
spent  its  first  productive  powers,  and  it  becomes  neces- 
sary to  use  extensively  the  costly  fertilizers.  But  the 
statesmen  beyond  the  Atlantic  are  too  hasty  in  their 
conclusions.  Even  old  worn  New  England  soil  is  made 
by  intelligent,  skilful  farming  to  turn  out  better  than 
the  richest  wheat  and  corn  lands  of  the  Mississippi 
valley.  It  can  be  said  that  what  may  redeem  the 
rural  prosperity  of  our  densely-populated  north-east 
corner  could  not  save  the  country,  as  a  whole,  from  the 
doleful  future  predicted  by  English  and  European  states- 
men. But  eastern  farmers  are  beo^innino:  to  learn  how 
to  make  their  land  pay,  even  in  wheat  and  corn  and  in 
all  other  articles  of  foreign  export.  The  grandest  suc- 
cess I  have  ever  seen  in  our  country  off  of  any  kind 
of  land,  old  or  new,  was   last  year  on  Long  Island. 


34  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

American  invention  is  at  work  upon  the  problem  of  fer- 
tilization, and  we  shall  soon  learn  to  utilize  our  natural 
resources.  Even  in  the  southern  state  of  Georgia  82 
per  cent,  of  the  cotton  planting  last  year  was  fertilized 
at  a  cost  abroad  of  six  millions  of  dollars.  Education  will 
make  our  husbandry  much  more  productive.  And  so 
in  this  line  we  see  ahead  no  prospect  for  our  coun- 
try but  accumulating  wealth,  permanent  resources,  and 
enlarging  responsibilities . 

It  is  a  surprise  to  the  traveller  to  see  so  many  manu- 
factories springing  up  all  over  America.  Doubtless  in 
this  we  rushed  ahead  a  little  too  fast  a  few  years  ago, 
even  as  we  did  in  the  extension  of  our  great  railway 
system.  But  population  and  demand  have  caught  up 
again  with  our  supply,  and  fairly  distanced  our  over- 
production. We  shall  soon  feed  half  of  Europe,  and 
clothe  half  of  Asia  and  South  America  and  Africa. 
The  battles  of  the  world  will  be  fought  largely  with  our 
guns  and  ammunition.  The  carrying  trade  of  the 
oceans  is  sure  to  come  back  to  us  as  soon  as  the  people 
are  brought  to  see  that  sufficient  subsidies  for  great 
lines  of  steamship  communication  with  the  different 
nations  are  as  wise  as  that  statesmanship  of  govern- 
ment sul)sidies,  which  has  bound  too:ether  with  iron  our 
eastern  and  western  coasts  ;  which  all  over  the  land  has 
spread  a  network  of  railways  that,  for  the  time  being 
at  least,  were  too  great  for  mere  private  enterprise  ;  and 
which  Avill  soon  give  us,  for  the  development  of  our 
vast  western  territories,  both  a  northern  and  a  southern, 
as  well  as  a  central  railroad  communication  between  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans.  India  cannot  break  our 
cotton  monopoly.  Canada  can  never  ofier  equal  at- 
tractions to  immigration.  The  labor  of  the  Orient  is 
waiting  for  emplo^^ment  outside  our  western  gates. 
There  is  no  other  nation,  nor  has  there  ever  been  one, 
carrying  so  heavy  a  burden  of  responsibility  before 
God.  The  empires  of  Alexander,  and  of  the  Ptolem- 
ies, and  of  the  Caesars,  failed  in  their  allotted  tasks, 
and  have  passed  away  ingloriously.  Shall  it  be  so 
with  us? 


America's  debt  to  Christianity.  35 

Christianity  has  done  everything  for  America.  We 
are  pre-eminently  the  national  miracle  of  the  ages,  be- 
cause God  has  especially  favored  us  with  the  knoAvledge 
of  His  Word,  with  profoun  dreligious  convictions,  with 
a  goodly  measure  of  enterprise  in  evangelization,  and 
with  that  righteousness,  in  personal  character,  and  in 
social,  business  and  political  relations,  which  exalteth 
nations.  The  southern  continent  of  this  western  hemi- 
sphere is  as  favorably  situated,  has  as  good  a  soil,  has 
equal  mineral  resources,  and  has  in  the  Amazon  a  far 
more  capacious  river  for  commerce  than  even  our  Mis- 
sissippi. Her  harbors  are  unequalled  in  the  world  ;  her 
natural  scenery  is  varied  and  unsurpassed  in  grandeur 
and  beauty  ;  and  her  populations  are  very  generally 
penetrated  and  permeated  with  republican  principles. 
But  Avith  us  the  Bible  is  not  bound.  With  us  there  is 
true  civil  and  religious  liberty.  With  us  the  blessed 
influence  of  the  Christian  Sabbath  has  been  permitted 
to  demonstrate  itself  as  not  in  Europe.  Our  nation 
was  born  amid  prayers  and  groanings  unto  Heaven, 
which  reached  the  ears  and  heart  of  the  Almighty. 
Our  life  to  maturity,  though  recording  scenes  of  great 
trial  and  danger,  has  all  along  witnessed  that  God  hath 
not  dealt  so  wonderfully  in  bestowments  and  contidences 
with  any  people,  l^o  nation  has  so  many  really  pious 
people.  Xone  has  so  numerous,  intelligent  and  hard- 
working a  gospel  ministry.  N@where  are  the  burdens 
of  church  support  borne  so  freely,  so  generously,  so  re- 
liably. Xowhere  is  the  christian  press  scattering  more 
copiously  and  beneficently.  America  is  great  because 
Christ  has  been  lifted  up.  Our  might  is  in  the  support 
of  those  arms  which  were  nailed  to  the  cross  on  Calvary. 
Do  we  appreciate  it?  Are  vre  mindful  of  our  all-sur- 
passing obligation  to  Christianity?  Then  the  world  is 
not  too  wide  for  us  to  express  everv where  our  gratitude. 
A  thousand  million  people,  who  know  not  Christ  as 
American  Christians  should  know  him,  are  not  too  many 
for  us  to  take  upon  our  hearts,  and  by  our  evangelizing 
efibrts  among  them  all  prove  the  sincerity  of  our 
gratitude. 


36  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  n. 

TO  SAN  FRANCISCO. 

MERTCA  is  a  Protestant  country,  and  so 
overwhelming  is  its  Protestantism  that,  if 

it  loses  this  ascendancy,  it  will  pass  from 

hands  which  do  not  deserve  to  retain  it. 

Our  population  is  eight  to  one  Protestant. 

This  enormous  majority  includes,  indeed, 
a  great  variety  of  sects,  and  a  multitude  of  unevan- 
gelized  and  irreligious  people,  but  the  social  and  polit- 
ical influence  of  all  is  against  Rome  ;  the  fraternity  and 
emulation  of  the  sects  may  be  elements  of  strength  more 
than  compensating  for  the  seeming  solidarity  of  the  great 
hierarchy  ;  and,  moreover,  the  Catholic  church  among  us 
iias  its  multitude  also  of  those  who  have  little  or  nothino^ 
to  do  wnth  the  confessional  or  the  celebration  of  the 
mass.  A  leading  prelate  remarked  lately,  in  an  assault 
upon  our  common  s(;liool  system,  that,  although  the 
Roman  Catholic  church  in  America  had  a  right  to  ten 
millions  of  our  population  on  account  of  immigration  and 
natural  increase,  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  were  not 
able  to  account  for  more  than  one  half  of  that  number. 
The  question  of  the  attitude  of  Protestantism  in  our 
country  tow^ard  Catholicism  is  one  requiring  serious 
consideration.  It  should  not  be  that  of  indiflerence. 
Too  plain  is  it  that  this  ecclesiastical  organization, 
whose  head  is  a  foreigner  and  an  Italian,  is  a  body  of  vast 
strength  and  aggressive  energy.  It  is  too  evident  that  it 
is  to  play  a  more  important  part  in  the  social  life  and 
political  history  of  our  country  than  it  has  in  the  past. 
We  have  travelled  in  nearly  all  the  states  of  the  Union, 


ROMAN    CATHOLICS    IN    AMERICA.  37 

and  have  everywhere  been,  impressed  with  the  strategic 
wisdom  of  the  Roman   Catholic  leaders    in  their 'real 
estate  investments,  the  selection  of  their  sites  for  church 
buildings,  and   in  their  erection  of  sanctuaries,  dwel- 
lings for  the  priesthood,  and  monastic  and  educational 
establishments.     Their  clergy  and  the  various  religious 
orders  are  displaying  on  all  hands  an  enormous  amount 
of  activity.     It  is  charged  that  they  do  not  scruple  as  to 
their  means  for  attaining  their  ends.     But  Ave  should  be 
careful  as  Protestants  not  to  maintain  toward  our  Catho- 
lic  fellow-citizens   the    attitude    of    misrepresentation. 
Falsehood  always    reacts   the  most  seriously  upon  its 
authors  or  sponsors.     There  is  much  proof  that  Ameri- 
can Catholicism  is  chiefly  conscientious,  disposed  to  the 
selection  of  proper  means  for  the  accomplishment  of  its 
objects,  and  truly  loyal  to  the  countrj^  whose  laws  pro- 
tect  its   adherents,   and  Avhose  land  has  furnished  an 
asylum  from  European  oppression  to  so  large  a  propor- 
tion of  them.     Take,  for  example,  the  crisis  of  our  late 
Avar.     It  was  in  the  interests  of  Rome  that  Ave  should  be 
broken  into  fragments,  even  as  of  England  and  France 
in  the  judgment  of  their  rulers.     But  American  Cathol- 
icism shoAved  that  it  had  formed  other  convictions,  and 
AA^as  true  to  them.     Had  their  loyalty  been  that  unre- 
lia1)le  element  that  is  Avidely  claimed  to  represent  their 
moral  constitution,  the  difficulties  of  our  situation  Avould 
have  been  greatly  increased,  and  the  issue  been  made 
much  more  "doubtful.     As  to  their  alleged  unscrupulous- 
ness,  surely  that  Avas  the  best  time,  Avhich  has  ever  oc- 
curred in  our  national  history,  for  our  Catholic  party  to 
force  their  vieAvs  upon  the  use  of  the  Bible  in  the  com- 
mon schools,  or  upon  Avhat  is  still  more  important  to 
them,  and  really  supersedes  that  question  entirely,  the 
diAHsion  of  the  common  school  public   funds ;   but  no 
such  proposal  Avas  made   as  the  condition  of  Catholic 
co-operation  in  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion. 

Roman  Catholicism  in  America  is  in  some  very  im- 
portant respects  very  different  from  what  it  is  in  other 
lands.  There  is  that  in  the  genius  of  our  free  repub- 
lican institutions,  that  in  the  general  intelligence  Avhich 


38  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

prevails  throughout  all  our  borders,  and  that  in  the 
fundamental  moral  convictions  of  our  national  life, 
whereby  the  American  Roman  Catholic  comes  inevi- 
tably to  draw  distinctions  between  church  and  national 
loyalty,  to  think  for  himself  upon  religious  and  moral 
and  political  questions,  and  to  have  such  an  awakening 
of  conscience  and  of  the  sense  of  personal  accountability 
to  God,  as  is  little  known  in  Italy  or  France,  or  in 
Austria  or  Spain.  On  an  excursion  a  little  out  from 
Chicago  we  met  two  intelligent  appearing,  middle-aged 
Catholic  priests,  and  were  so  fortunate  as  to  stumble 
into  a  conversation  with  them.  They  were  very  free  to 
explain  into  the  doctrine  of  Papal  infallibility  American 
ideas,  which  would  be  pronounced  very  heretical  by  the 
court  of  the  Vatican.  They  expressed  themselves  as 
strongly  attached  to  our  form  of  government,  and  as 
confident  that  their  co-religionists  would  never  engage 
upon  this  continent  in  other  than  conflicts  of  peaceful 
agitation  and  the  lawful  use  of  the  ballot.  They  de- 
clared that  the  school  question  was  a  very  vital  one,  and 
that  their  church  vrould  never  rest  till  there  was  a  fair 
annual  division  of  the  educational  funds  raised  by  com- 
mon taxation.  They  expected  the  country  in  another 
century  to  be  redeemed  from  Protestant  heresies,  but 
protested  that  their  means  and  methods  for  such  attam- 
ment  were  fair  and  a])ove-board.  They  would  cover 
the  land  with  their  own  school  buildings,  and  then  ti'ust 
to  the  honor  of  Americans  not  to  force  them  to  sustain 
two  school  systems.  They  felt  that  their  church  was 
such  a  benefit  to  societ}',  that  the  funds  granted  them  in 
New  York  city  and  elsewhere  would,  if  multiplied  many 
times,  be  but  a  suitable  expression  of  gratitude,  and  an 
investment  that  would  ]>e  returned  a  thousand-fold. 
They  felt  that  there  were  common  grounds  where  Catho- 
lics and  Protestants  could  work  together  for  the  good  of 
society.  In  the  matter  of  persecution  for  i-eligious  be- 
lief, they  read  history  difierently  from  their  opponents, 
were  quite  confident  we  could  not  charge  them  with  the 
monopoly  of  this  mode  of  zeal,  and  were  sanguine  that 
as    a    whole   American    Catholicism  would    never    be 


THE  PROTESTANT  CONFLICT.  39 

brought  to  use  physical  force  for   the  suppression  of 
heretical  convictions. 

The  future  of  Protestantism  in  this  country  depends 
upon  itself,  rather  than  upon  the  real  and  supposed 
weakness ,  of  those  Avho  are  its  principal  opponents. 
We  must  show  among  our  clergy  and  laity  that,  under 
the  motives  which  we  allow,  there  is  a  larger  measure  of 
self-sacrifice,  more  of  the  spirit  of  the  Master,  who 
came  "  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister." 
Our  clergymen  must  show  a  greater  readiness  than 
Catholic  priests  to  go  anywhere  at  the  call  of  duty, 
to  villages,  to  mission  stations,  to  country  cross  roads, 
anywhere,  as  well  as  to  popular  city  pulpits  and  metro- 
politan brown  stone  front  parsonages.  We  must  be 
more  zealous  than  they  to  visit  the  poor  and  the  sick 
and  the  dying,  and  more  open  handed  than  they  to  lead 
in  the  benevolence  of  our  parishes.  Our  efforts  to  sup- 
press vice  and  intemperance  and  immorality  must  be 
more  manifold  than  theirs.  Our  political  duties  as  citi- 
zens must  be  more  faithfully  discharged,  even  though 
we  also  have  to  associate  with  many  whose  tastes  and 
manners  of  life  are  exceedingly  disagreeable.  The  wel- 
come to  Protestant  houses  of  worship  should  be  more 
free  and  cordial  than  to  Catholic  sanctuaries.  Our  laity 
must  prove  that  their  gratitude  to  Jesus  Christ  for  a 
complete  and  free  salvation  is  at  all  times  a  larger  draft 
upon  their  financial  resources,  than  the  doctrine  of  pen- 
ance, which  supplements  the  cross,  perfecting  the  atone- 
ment by  works  of  personal  sacrifice  and  merit.  We 
should  dedicate  fewer  debts  upon  our  houses  of  God. 
Our  home  and  foreign  missionary  treasuries  should  have 
the  less  frequently  to  report  deficits.  Our  laborers 
should  be  found  the  more  frequently  among  the  out- 
lying sections  of  our  cities,  among  the  cabins  of  the 
southern  freedmen,  amons^  the  wis^wams  of  the  western 
Indians,  and  in  the  van  of  civilization  everywhere 
throughout  the  world.  Our  missionaries  should  swarm 
the  most  numerously  among  the  hundreds  of  millions  of 
Buddhists  and  Hindus  and  INIoslems.  They  should  be 
the  most  ready  to  suffer  toil  and  persecution  and  death. 


40  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

Protestantism  has  such  resources  to-day  that,  in  the 
judgment  of  the  world,  it  must  expect  such  comparisons. 
We  cannot  fight  the  battle  with  Catholicism  solely  upon 
principles.  It  is  also  a  question  of  comparative  fruitage. 
We  are  not  afraid  of  the  test.  But  there  are  lessons  to 
be  learned.  There  is  improvement  to  be  made.*  Catho- 
lics are  adopting  many  of  our  methods.  In  some 
things  they  are  doing  better  than  (us)  And  Ave  need 
to  remind  ourselves  that  the  law  of  the  future  religious 
history  of  America  will  be,  not  onl}'  in  principle  but 
also  in  practice,  "  the  survival  of  the  fittest." 

In  the  streets  of  Chicago,  we  met  Chinese  and  Japanese 
and  a  Turk,  and  an  Indian  Parsee,  as  well  as  Gemians 
and  Irish,  and  Scandinavians  in  abundance,  together 
with  a  sprinkling  of  Italians  and  French  and  Portuguese. 
And  this  is  not  in  this  respect  an  exceptional  city. 
Everywhere  throughout  the  northern  part  of  our  coun- 
try the  traveller  is  impressed  with  the  cosmopolitan 
character  of  America.  For  some  purpose  the  whole 
world  is  sending  its  representatives  to  our  shores.  His- 
tory shows  that  all  the  might}^  movements  of  the 
nations  have  been  controlled  by  deep  undercurrents  of 
definite  design.  Why  are  all  the  peoples  swarming 
hither?  Why,  with  mcreasing  numbers  eveiy  year, 
are  they  settling  among  us  a  part  of  our  permanent 
population,  and  also  passing  and  repassing  through  our 
land,  and  then  flitting  back  to  their  far-oft'  homes  be- 
yond the  seas?  There  are  other  lands  as  beautiful  as 
ours.  There  are  other  climates  more  salubrious.  There 
are  other  peoples  more  industrious  and  thrifty.  There 
are  other  nations  with  larger  accumulations  of  wealth. 
Is  it  not  to  see  the  most  wonderful  thing  in  America,  its 
Christianity,  in  its  character  and  development?  Men 
ma}^  not  so  purpose,  but  is  it  not  God's  design?  Here 
are  lessons  beine;  tauijht  for  the  world ;  shall  not  the 
Master  have  his  pupils  right  before  him?  Here,  as  no 
w^iere  else  in  Christendom,  is  instruction  being  given 
upon  civil  and  religious  libert}^  upon  the  brotherhood 
of  man,  upon  the  sanctity  of  the  Christian  sab])ath,  upon 
the  voluntar}^  principle  in  religious  suppoi't,  upon  Sun- 


UNEMPLOYED   RESERVES.  41 

day  school  enterprise,  upon  personal  character  as  quali- 
fication for  church  meml>ership,  upon  total  abstinence 
as  a  christian  principle,  ui)on  the  repressive  force  of  a 
christianized  public  opinion  in  place  of  large  standing 
armies  to  keep  down  lawlessness  and  to  avoid  disorder, 
and  upon  the  true  position  of  woman  as  the  companion 
and  helpmeet  of  man.  God  means  the  world  shall 
learn  these  lessons,  which  he  is  especially  teaching  by 
the  object  method  in  America.  AVhat  a  responsibility 
at  least  to  keep  out  of  the  way  of  such  purposes.  That 
much,  to  say  nothing  of  hearty  efficient  co-operation, 
means  a  vast  deal  more  than  American  Christians  are 
yet  doing  both  in  home  and  foreign  mission  work. 
Think  of  the  ten  millions  of  them,  whose  names  are 
enrolled  upon  the  lists  of  our  nearly  one  hundred  thou- 
sand evangelical  churches.  To  them  belongs  one  third 
at  least  of  the  enormous  wealth  of  our  countr}^  With- 
out hardly  feeling  it,  they  have  accumulated  church 
property  to  the  amount  of  over  two  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of  dollars.  And  what  are  they  doing  now 
annually  in  the  cause  of  evangelization  among  the 
neglected  classes  at  home,  and  among  the  teeming 
millions  of  the  unchristianized  in  other  lands  ? 

I  hesitate  to  answer.  It  is  so  much  more  agreeable 
to  look  upon  the  bright  side  of  these  statistics.  A 
great  deal,  indeed,  is  being  done.  jMany  churches  are 
supporting  their  own  local  missions  in  destitute  parts  of 
their  cities.  Nearly  all  the  states,  and  many  counties 
within  the  states,  are  carrying  on  separate  missionary 
enterprises,  which  in  the  aggregate  present  a  very  grat- 
ifying amount  of  benevolence  and  evangelizing  activity. 
Then  nearly  every  branch  of  the  Church  has  its  national 
home  missionary  organization  or  department.  Not  far 
from  two  thousand  ordained  missionaries  are  thus  sup- 
ported Avholly  or  in  part  in  those  sections  of  the  coun- 
try, mostly  at  the  west,  where  there  is  the  lack  of 
ability  or  of  willingness,  or  of  both,  to  meet  the  cost  of 
stated  worship,  or  where,  as  is  frequently  the  case,  the 
religious  ignorance  is  as  dense,  and  the  morals  of  society 
are   as   deorraded   as   in   heathendom.      Then   throusfh 


42  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

various  channels  we  do  distribute  a  great  many  Bibles, 
and  other  christian  literature ;  and  many  schools  of 
various  grades  under  religious  guidance  are  of  so  gratu- 
itous and  evangelizing  a  character  that  they  should 
largely  ])e  credited  to  the  missionary  side  of  our 
American  Church  inventory.  Then  about  fourteen  hun- 
dred missionaries  (139.5),  including  the  married  women, 
are  sent  from  our  shores  to  foreign  countries.  These 
occupy  nearly  five  hundred  stations  throughout  the 
unevangelized  world,  from  the  great  majority  of  which, 
largely  through  native  agencies,  flow  steady  streams  of 
christian  instruction  and  influence  among  many  millions 
of  our  sin-darkened  and  sin-hardened  race.  But  all 
this  varied  missionary  enterprise,  over  which  it  is 
tempting  to  linger  in  congratulation  and  devout  thanks- 
giving, is  yet  a  shame  to  us,  when  we  consider  what  a 
trifling  proportion  of  our  al)ility  is  thus  exercised.  The 
total  annual  cost  is  not  over  five  millions  of  dollars ; 
fifty  cents  a  year  for  each  member  of  American  Protest- 
ant churches  ;  hardly  an  average  of  one  cent  a  week  on 
the  part  of  those  who,  l^eyond  the  christians  of  any 
other  nation,  or  of  any  other  age  in  the  history  of  the 
church,  are  under  the  greatest  obligation  to  set  forth  in 
the  most  glowing  light  the  self-emptying  power  of 
Christianity,  its  care  for  the  destitute,  and  its  solicitude 
for  perishing  souls  wherever  they  may  be  found  this 
side  of  the  o^rave  thr()uo;hout  the  world.  We  know  in 
addition  that  our  evangelical  churches  spend  upon  them- 
selves, their  own  ministry  and  incidental  expenses  of 
worship,  their  own  buildings  and  repairs,  and  their  own 
educational  institutions,  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood 
of  eighty-five  millions  of  dollars  annually.  But, 
though  that  is  commendable,  it  does  not  relieve  the 
shame  of  barely  a  cent  a  week  each  member  for  world- 
wide Christian  Mission. 

On  the  north-western  railway  from  Chicago  to  Omaha, 
we  had  a  pleasant  conversation  with  a  New  York  gentle- 
man, who  is  deeply  interested  in  the  well-known  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association  of  that  city.  It  is  a  large 
and  very  efficient  missionary  organization,  doing  a  re- 


YOUNG   men's    christian    ASSOCIATIONS.  43 

markable  work  in  the  metropolis.  Representative 
young  men  from  all  the  evangelical  churches  here  en- 
gage in  union  effort  to  furnish,  particularly  to  their  own 
class  in  community  who  have  not  their  own  home  and 
sanctuary  privileges,  an  attractive  refuge  from  the  lone- 
some cheerless  boarding-houses,  from  the  streets  and 
haunts  of  vice,  and  from  the  wretched  companions 
who  hang  like  vultures  around  the  steps  of  all  young 
men  in  our  cities.  Many  generous  gifts  have  been 
made  by  christian  citizens,  and  leaders  of  special  quali- 
fications have  been  found,  with  v\'hom  to  entrust  the 
various  important  a^nd  constantly  increasing  responsibil- 
ities. A  magnificent  1:)uilding  has  been  provided  at  the 
corner  of  Fourth  Avenue  and  Twenty-third  Street, 
with  a  spacious  lecture-hall,  reading-rooms,  library, 
social  parlors,  committee-rooms  and  offices.  I  do  not 
know  any  place  in  New  York  which  will  better  pay  a 
visit  from  a  christian  tourist. 

I  believe  in  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  — 
their  use,  not  their  almse.  All  churches  might  fit  up 
in  connection  with  their  sanctuaries  parlors  and  reading- 
rooms,  keeping  them  lighted  every  evening,  and  then 
be  ever  so  free  in  their  invitations  and  cordial  in  their 
welcomes ;  but  still  a  very  lar^e  proportion  of  the 
young  men,  whom  it  is  desired  tc  reach,  Avill  not  come. 
They  ought  to,  but  they  will  not.  It  savors  too  much 
of  the  church.  It  is  too  long  a  step  for  their  first  one 
away  from  the  world.  They  shrink  from  immediate 
contact  with  ministers  and  deacons  and  pious  w^omen. 
If  they  are  to  be  prevailed  upon  to  go  anywhere  to  meet 
christians,  they  want  the  place  to  have  somewhat  of  a 
secular  air.  They  would  like  to  see  a  few  papers  on 
the  tables,  and  certain  selections  of  l)ooks  on  the* shelves, 
which  w^ould  hardly  be  the  thing  under  a  church  roof, 
and  which,  while  unobjectionable  on  the  grounds  of 
morals  and  literary  merit,  would  never  be  selected  by  a 
Sunday  school  committee  engaged  in  replenishing  its 
library.  The  fellowship  that  is  exercised  in  these  asso- 
ciations between  the  often  otherwise  quite  isolated 
churches,  is  very  beneficial  to  the  christians  themselves 


44  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

and  impresses  favorably  the  outside  world.  And  thus, 
too,  many  christian  young  men  doubtless  find  oppor- 
tunity and  example  and  direction,  Avhich  are  denied  them 
in  delinquent  churches. 

However,  in  regard  to  the  working  of  Young  Men's 
Christian  Associations,  both  ready  judgment  and  ex- 
perience suggest  cautions.  Beyond  the  special  work 
that  centres  in  the  reading,  social  and  lecture  rooms,  it 
is  best  that  missionary  efforts  should  proceed  directly 
from  the  churches.  If  young  men  ])ecome  fired  with 
evano^elizino^  zeal,  and  desire  to  o-o  out  amono^  the  neo^- 
lected  classes,  they  will  generally  do  better  to  empha- 
size their  church  instead  of  their  associational  relations. 
Wise  men,  selected  hy  common  consent  and  appoint- 
ment, can  be  an  honor  to  union  elfort  for  a  special  class  ; 
but  christian  young  men,  indiscriminately  acting  in  be- 
half of  these  associations  in  mission  work,  cannot  be 
expected  to  preserve  the  balance  of  judgment  and  ex- 
pression and  action  that  is  demanded. 

It  was  a  bright  moonlight  evening  that  night  of  our 
ride  between  Lake  Michigan  and  the  Mississippi.  At 
the  moment  we  were  passing  through  one  of  the  little 
villages,  a  small  group  of  perhaps  a  dozen  people  came 
moving  down  the  long  steps  of  one  of  the  white- 
painted  green-blinded  churches.  I  wondered  whether 
it  had  been  a  choir  rehearsal  or  a  regular  weekly 
prayer  meeting.  If  it  was  the  latter, — and  prob- 
ably so,  for  all  were  elderly,  staid-looking  people, — 
then  why  so  small  an  attendance?  Why  everywhere 
are  the  stated  social  meetings  of  the  church  so  thinly 
attended?  It  is  one  of  the  most  important  ques-- 
tions  for  American  christians  to  consider.  Christ  is 
the  heart*  of  the  church,  and  the  prayer  meeting 
is  the  pulse-beat.  Put  your  fingers  on  that  beat, 
and  you  know  the  health  of  the  church,  the  temper  of 
its  piety,  the  probable  amount  of  its  real  prayer  in 
secret,  and  its  strength  and  vigor  for  ])oth  home  and 
foreign  mission  work.  The  great  difficulty  in  the 
way  of  world  evangelization  to-day  is  the  lack  among 
christians  of  earnest  importunate  unitecl  v  ---..-  fo  God 


PRAYER    FOR    POWER.  45 

for  the  gift  of  His  spiritual  power.  In  a  letter  we 
received  the  other  day  from  a  very  intelligent  mission- 
ary of  large  experience  in  Asia,  the  wish  was  ex- 
pressed, indeed,  for  more  helpers  to  be  sent  to  his 
station,  and  more  money  for  buildings,  native  preachers 
and  school  support,  "but,"  he  added,  "what  is  of  greater 
consequence  than  all,  give  us  more  prayer  at  home.  If 
you  must  withhold,  withhold  the  missionaries  and  the 
money,  but  the  prayers  we  must  have,  or  spiritual 
power  will  be  denied  us,  and  all  our  missionary 
machinery  can  turn  out  little  or  nothing."  Indeed 
prayer  is  the  hand,  that  moves  the  arm,  that  moves  the 
worlds.  Prayer  is  the  lever  God  has  given  us,  with 
Avhich  to  lift  up  our  fallen  race,  and  place  it  upon  the 
pedestal  of  his  glory.  Money  is  useful  as  an  accessory  ; 
a  full  supply  of  the  messengers  of  the  gospel  to  all 
portions  of  our  own  country  and  to  all  the  unevangel- 
ized  districts  of  other  lands  is  very  desirable ;  but  one 
man,  with  not  a  dollar  in  his  pocket,  afire  with  the  love 
of  souls,  and  backed  by  the  united  importunate  prayers 
of  God's  people,  will  do  more  in  the  destitute  regions 
of  America,  or  more  in  Asia,  or  more  in  Africa,  than  a 
thousand  missionaries,  with  overflowing  treasuries,  but 
Avithout  power,  divine  pov.  er  which  God  has  ordained  as 
answer  to  prayer. 

How,  then,  is  the  Christian  Church  praying?  Look 
at  her  average  prayer  meetings  in  the  ordinary  churches, 
where  those  who  attend  come  from  a  measure  of  prin- 
ciple, come  because  they  believe  that  this  is  God's 
appointed  way  for  the  reception  of  spiritual  power, 
come  because  they  believe  that,  after  all,  the  preaching 
in  their  church,  the  teaching  in  their  Sunday  school, 
and  the  eflaciency  of  all  home  and  foreign  mission  giving 
and  labor  depend  upon  importunity  at  the  Mercy  Seat. 
What  a  thinly-scattered  attendance  !  Can  it  be  that 
this  is  the  church  in  prayer? 

The  grand  diiEculty  with  our  prayer  meetings  is  that 
the  church  does  not  appreciate  their  importance,  their 
necessity.  Prayer  is  not  esteemed  at  God's  estimate. 
It  is  not  considered  to  hold  that  position  which  it  really 


46  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

does  in  the  divine  economy.  It  is,  indeed,  the  thing  to 
do  for  the  christian  —  for  the  church.  It  is  inconsistent 
for  the  professor  to  omit  it  in  secret ;  and  it  would  be 
an  unseemly  thing  for  a  church  to  have  no  stated  gather- 
ing for  united  prayer.  But  it  is  not  generally  felt  that 
earnest,  thoughtful,  intercessory  prayer  is  an  absolutely 
essential  condition  of  vital  personal  relationship  with 
God;  nor  that  all  efforts  among  men  to  build  up  the 
Redeemer's  cause  depend  ultimately  for  their  success 
upon  the  united  prayers  of  the  Christian  constituency. 
Over  and  over  again,  in  the  history  of  evangelization, 
God  has  held  back  blessing  from  consecrated  wealth 
and  consecrated  lives,  until  a  corresponding  volume  of 
prayer  has  come  up  before  him,  showing  that  his  people 
are  trusting  not  in  the  instrumentalities,  but  in  Him 
who  evermore  uses  instrumentalities  for  his  own  glory. 
It  would  be  a  most  serious  disaster  to  our  Redeemer's 
Kingdom  in  this  world  for  a  few  million  dollars  and  a 
few  hundred  missionaries  to  go  forth  fulfilling  the  glori- 
ous promises  which  God  has  made  to  his  Church. 
Better  the  car  of  Zion  stand  still  a  thousand  years  than 
that  the  Christian  Church  forget  her  absolute  depend- 
ence upon  her  Lord,  and  feel  that  the  world  can  be 
christianized  by  money  and  men.  When  the  time  shall 
come  that  a  large  proportion  of  christians  are  really 
praying,  praying  together  that  the  Kingdom  of  God 
may  come,  that  adequate  spiritual  power  for  world-wide 
evangelization  may  be  poured  down  from  above  upon  our 
ministry,  and  home  missionaries,  and  foreign  mission- 
aries, then  will  mountains  of  difficulty  that  are  now  in 
the  way  disappear,  then  will  the  weakest  of  our  sta- 
tions seem  stronger  than  the  everlasting  hills,  and  then 
will  the  unnumbered  hosts  of  idolatry  and  superstition 
and  formalism  come,  .not  by  scores  and  hundreds,  but 
by  millions,  and  join  with  those  who  have  prayed  for 
them  in  crowning  Jesus  Christ  Lord  of  all.  The  ques- 
tion of  missions  to-day  is  a  ])rayer  question.  The 
grand  duty  of  the  Christian  Church  of  the  present  is  to 
get  to  praying,  praying  in  secret,  praying  together.  A 
deep  sense  of  the  obligation  will  fittingly  regulate  all 
the  formalism. 


UNPARALLELED    CITY    GROWTH.  47 


CHAPTER  in. 

WAITING  FOR  OUR  STEAMSHIP. 

E  have  crossed  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
the  Sierra  Nevadas,  rolled  along  since  leav- 
ing the  Missouri  River  at  Omaha  through 
Nebraska  and  Wyoming,  and  Utah,  and 
Nevada,  catching  glimpses  of  Idaho  and 
Colorado,  and  now,  after  crossing  Cali- 
fornia, we  find  ourselves  at  the  city  of  the 
Golden  Gate,  San  Francisco.  Only  thirty-two  years' 
growth,  and  yet  with  a  population  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand,  the  streets  beautifully  laid  out, 
ornamented  with  many  costly  public  and  private  build- 
ings, horse  railways  traversing  in  all  directions,  ex- 
cept up  and  down  those  steep  hills,  Avhere  the  endless 
wire-rope  arrangement  proves  so  excellent  a  substitute, 
upon  the  shore  of  a  bay  rivalling  the  Narragansett,  and 
in  a  climate  the  most  delightful,  taking  the  whole  year 
round,  in  all  America.  Its  citizens  appear  as  New 
Yorkers,  intensified,  many  of  them,  however,  with  some- 
what of  the  added  manners  of  the  pioneer  cabin  and  of 
the  mining  camp.  The  rough  edges  of  1849  are  not 
quite  yet  worn  off". 

An  anomaly  of  San  Francisco  is  its  clerical  mayor. 
He  is  pastor  of  a  leading,  or  at  least  notorious,  church, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  head  of  the  Municipal  Govern- 
ment. It  is  fearfully  dangerous  for  an}^  minister  of  the 
gospel  or  missionary  of  the  cross  to  attempt  to  serve 
both  God  and  iSIammon.  He  who  is  set  apart  solemnly 
and  pul)licly  to  the  life-work  of  evangelization  and 
church  edification,  cannot,  with  impunity,  turn  aside  to 
make  money  or  to  gain  political  honors,  except  in  cir- 


48  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

cumstances  over  which  he  has  no  control.  True  chris- 
tian life  is  not  inconsistent  with  wealth  and  government 
position,  but  it  will  no  more  mingle  than  oil  and  water 
with  the  deliberate  and  persistent  violation  of  ordination 
vows,  with  the  violent  shock  Avhich  such  secularization 
of  the  ministry  gives  to  the  religious  sentiment  of  so- 
ciety, and  with  the  distrust  that  is  created  and  fostered 
among  multitudes  in  the  reality  of  a  religion  whose  pro- 
fessors, under  the  most  advantageous  circumstances, 
prove  unable  to  resist  the  temptations  of  the  world. 

At  the  Palace  Hotel  I  fell  in  company  with  a  number 
of  southern  gentlemen,  wdiose  conversations  strength- 
ened the  impressions  I  had  formed  during  several  visits 
to  their  part  of  the  country. 

The  majority  of  the  hearts  of  those  in  the  late  con- 
federacy are  not  yet  conquered.  But  they  have  ac- 
cepted the  results  of  the  war.  Nearly  all  the  enlight- 
ened and  thoughtful  leaders  of  public  opinion  have 
formed  the  conviction,  and  are  acting  upon  it  in  good 
faith,  that  the  union  of  the  States  is  indissoluble  ;  that 
southern  interests  must  henceforth  rely  upon  legislation, 
and  that  the  introduction  of  foreign  capital  must  be 
encouraged.  But  few  will  acknowledge  that  secession 
was  a  crime,  or  that  the  confederacy  had  not  just  cause 
to  set  up  a  government  for  itself;  and  yet,  there  has  been 
such  a  general  reversal  of  judgment  regarding  the  con- 
ditions of  southern  financial  prosperity,  and  the  inev- 
itable dependence  upon  northern  resources,  that  to-day, 
on  a  free  vote  simply  of  the  white  population,  the 
South  would  declare  emphatically  in  favor  of  the  Union. 
It  is  not  in  the  nature  of  the  citizens  of  the  recon- 
structed states  to  be  hypocritical.  They  are  peculiarly 
open-handed  and  open-hearted.  There  is  as  high  a 
sense  of  honor  among  them  as  among  an  equal  popula- 
tion in  any  other  part  of  the  Avorld.  When  they  say 
they  accept  the  Constitution  with  its  amendments,  they 
mean  it.  Because  they  sought  bravely,  Avith  vast  expen- 
diture of  blood  and  treasure,  to  release  themselves 
from  the  authority  of  that  Constitution,  they  should  not 
now  be  looked  upon  with  suspicion.     The  circumstances 


SOUTHERN    CO-OPERATION.  49 

are  different.  What  they  tried  to  do  in  secession,  they 
felt  they  had  a  right  to  do.  Almost  from  the  very  be- 
ginning of  our  national  history,  they  had  been  free  to 
claim  this  right  on  the  stump,  through  the  press,  and  in 
congressional  debate.  When  secession  came  it  was 
rebellion,  and  deserved  to  be  put  down  as  it  was  by  the 
strong  arm  of  the  national  government.  But  nothing 
had  happened  to  justify  the  prevailing  suspicion  at  the 
North  of  the  integrity  of  the  southern  conscience. 

General  Lee's  word  as  a  man  was  as  good  as  that 
of  General  Grant.  They  say  now  frankly,  "  We  do  not 
yet  love  the  United  States  Government,  but,  as  the  re- 
sult of  the  war,  we  accept  its  sovereign  authority  over 
the  states,  and  may  be  relied  upon  as  true  American 
citizens."  We  should  believe  them,  and  trust  them. 
The  attitude  of  their  representatives  in  Congress  four 
years  ago  at  the  nation's  crisis  of  the  electoral  count 
should  strengthen  such  confidence.  President  Hayes  Avas 
not  mistaken  in  his  policy  of  conciliation  and  fraterniz- 
ation. And  the  late  canvas,  —  we  judge  of  it  from  far 
beyond  the  noise  and  smoke  of  the  conflict,  —  was 
unworthy  of  the  manhood  and  christian  spirit  of  our 
country,  in  so  far  as  it  proceeded  on  the  suspicion  that 
the  South  was  acting  hypocritically,  and  could  not  be 
trusted  to  fulfil  her  newly  sworn  and  perfectly  well 
understood  obligations  to  the  general  government. 

As  confidence  is  the  key  to  the  national  situation,  so 
is  education  the  solution  to  the  political  condition  of 
affairs  in  the  southern  states.  It  cannot  be  expected, 
even  as  President  Garfield  wisely  remarked  in  response 
to  an  address  from  a  deputation  of  colored  men,  it  can- 
not be  expected  that  a  thoroughly  peaceful  and  satisfac- 
tory state  of  society  can  exist,  where  a  majority  of  the 
population  is  uneducated,  and  yet  possess  both  the 
legal  right  and  disposition  to  rule,  if  possible,  over  the 
minority.  In  applying  the  principle  of  justice  in  gov- 
ernments, brains  have  often  to  be  counted  as  well  as 
heads.  It  is  not  natural  that  one  man  of  intelligence 
and  culture  shall  submit  quietly,  while  four  ignorant 
men,  with  not  half  his  range  of  infoiTnation  and  judg- 


50  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ment  and  moral  conviction,  put  theirs  all  together,  make 
the  laws  for  himself  and  family,  collect  his  taxes,  and 
arrange  for  his  comfort  and  protection.  They  are  ;  and 
yet  again  they  are  not  the  majority.  History  proves 
that  always  in  the  long  run  intelligence  and  force  of 
character  rule,  and  not  mere  numbers.  American 
statesmanship  has  been  too  ready  to  attach  importance 
to  quantities  rather  than  to  qualities.  It  was  a  great 
mistake  to  have  o-iven  the  rio^ht  of  suffrao-e  to  the  io^no- 
rant  mass  of  the  freedmen.  There  was  an  occasion, 
perhaps  once  for  all,  to  put  to  rights  the  whole  suffrage 
question  of  our  country.  In  the  balance  of  liabilities 
to  both  the  great  national  parties,  it  would  have  been 
possible  to  introduce  a  proper  educational  standard  for 
all  voters,  north  and  south,  Avhite  and  black,  Irish  and 
negro.  The  Democratic  leaders  would  have  been  in- 
duced, many  of  them  would  have  sprung  with  alacrity 
to  the  chance  of  unloading  the  disagreeable  responsi- 
bility of  taking  care  of  the  ignorant  immigration  vote, 
if  Republican  statesmen  had  made  it  the  indispensable 
condition  of  the  Avithholding  of  the  equally  unqualified 
freedman's  vote.  At  the  same  time,  a  good  deal  of  the 
so-called  "  white  trash,"  both  south  and  north,  would 
have  been  sent  back  to  school  before  being  intrusted 
again  with  the  full  responsibilities  of  citizenship.  But 
mistaken  ideas  controlled.  Some  were  influenced  by 
vindictive  motives  ;  the  South  was  getting  off  too  easily. 
She  must  be  made  to  feel  the  lash  still  more  vigorously 
applied.  Others  were  carried  away  by  their  sympathies 
for  the  negro,  who  had  been  enslaved,  and  to  so  large 
an  extent  cruelly  enslaved.  Others  had  their  heads 
turned  by  the  discipline  and  heroism  displayed  by 
colored  soldiers  in  many  a  camp  and  hospital,  and  on 
many  a  hard-fought  battle-field. 

Now,  the  only  thing  our  country  can  do  is  to  brace  up 
for  the  strain  upon  our  republican  institutions,  involved 
in  the  suffrage  rights  conferred  upon  so  vast  a  multitude 
of  both  intellectually  and  morally  unqualified  men,  and 
in  every  possible  way  encourage  their  education.  It  is 
in  evidence  that  the  southern  white  leaders  accept  the 


freedmen's  training  schools.  51 

situation,  of  national  authority  over  state  authority, 
when  they  ask  Congress  to  assist  in  providing  schools 
for  the  colored  citizens  of  their  states.  Especially 
should  the  Christian  Church  exert  itself  to  the  utmost 
to  foster  throughout  the  southern  states  schools  under 
religious  influence.  The  moral  atmosphere  is  terribly 
polluted  among  the  lower  stratas  of  both  black  and 
white  populations.  It  is  largely  the  lingering  traces  of 
slaveiy.  Human  creatures  were  accounted  animals ; 
and  many  of  them  and  their  descendants  have  scarcely 
arisen  in  their  social  intercourse  al)ove  that  degraded 
condition.  Christian  schools  for  the  freedmen  ;  especial- 
ly training-schools,  that  shall  prepare  in  large  numbers, 
as  soon  as  possible,  qualified  preachers  of  the  gospel 
and  competent  teachers  of  christian  morals  and  true 
science  to  lead  these  millions  out  from  their  darkness 
into  the  light,  up  from  their  ignorance  and  degradation 
to  intelligence  and  respectability,  and  to  change  them 
from  political  pests  into  political  blessings  ;  these  schools 
are  a  pressing  demand  which  no  words  can  exaggerate. 
In  part  the  American  Church  is  feeling  and  meeting 
the  demand  for  freedmen's  training-schools.  Several 
of  the  denominations  have  established  each  fi-om  five  to 
ten  of  these  institutions  under  a  variety  of  names  at 
generally  different  and  widely-separated  points  of  our 
immense  southern  area.  Many  of  the  schools  are  pro- 
vided with  good  ])uildings,  and  nearly  all  of  them  with 
excellent  teachers.  But,  with  only  one  or  two  excep- 
tions, they  are  generally  kept  in  such  straitened  finan- 
cial circumstances  as  to  be  almost  paralyzed  for  the 
work  that  is  on  hand.  Xorthern  christians  have  no 
conception  of  the  crushing  pressure  under  which  their 
missionaries  in  these  traininsf-schools  are  laborins:.  The 
time  is  exceptional.  Nothing  like  it  has  ever  happened 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  —  scores  of  thousands  out 
of  a  population  of  six  millions,  the  picked  young  men 
and  women  of  the  degraded  multitudes,  nearly  all  of. 
them  professed  believers  in  Christ,  thronging  to  our 
christian  training-schools  and  begging  to  be  so  in- 
structed, that  they  may  become  qualified*  to  be  preachers 


52  CHKISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

and  teachers  to  their  people,  both  in  America  and 
Africa.  But  the  vast  majority  of  them  have  to  be  sent 
away  disappointed,  for  there  is  no  room  to  receive  them 
for  lodging  or  study,  no  food  of  even  the  coarsest,  cheap- 
est character  to  keep  them  alive,  no  teachers  to  instruct 
them,  no  counsellors  to  guide  them. 

The  social  ban,  which  to  an  extent  is  put  upon  north- 
erners at  the  South,  and  especially  upon  those  who  are 
associated  with  the  work  for  the  negroes,  is  very  liable 
to  exaggeration.  Multitudes,  who  had  failed  to  accom- 
plish anything  at  the  North  in  their  various  ill-advised 
and  awkwardly  conducted  business  and  professional  ex- 
periments, have  been  down  South,  tried  again  and  failed, 
and  returned  to  report  that  all  social  and  financial  doors 
were  closed  against  them  on  account  of  their  political 
sentiments  and  northern  antecedents.  When  General 
Grant  compared  lately  the  "  carpet-bagger  "  of  the  South 
with  those  men  of  vigor  and  enterprise  and  tact,  who 
from  the  East  have  gone  West  and  built,  up  a  vast  empire 
of  wealth  and  influence,  he  largely  confounded  people 
who  are  as  unlike  as  possible.  Many  have  gone  South 
as  mere  political  vultures  to  prey  upon  the  carcasses  ex- 
posed, their  republicanism  a  mere  make-shift  with  which 
to  manipulate  the  freedmen's  votes.  Others,  w^ell  dis- 
posed, but  short-sighted,  have  advocated  the  negro  in- 
temperately,  utterly  careless  of  the  prejudices  by  which 
he  is  surrounded.  Others,  laboring  conscientiously  and 
faithfully  for  the  elevation  of  the  degraded  race,  have 
too  much  in  their  treatment  and  social  intercourse  and 
their  own  habits  of  life  shocked  the  feelings  and  repelled 
the  friendly  intercourse  of  multitudes  of  the  better  class 
of  the  whites  in  the  South. 

I  had  an  esteemed  friend,  who  went  from  Eochester, 
N.  Y.,  to  Atlanta,  Ga.,  and  there  proved  that  christian 
manliness  and  tact  were  sufficient  to  secure  a  pleasant 
social  position.  On  the  eve  of  his  return,  at  a  large 
public  meeting  to  his  honor,  the  speaker  said  :  "  By  his 
great  prudence,  his  conciliatory  temper,  and  his  uni- 
formly christian  bearing  toward  all,  he  has  not  only 
allayed  the  prepossessions  growing  out  of  the  peculiar 


NORTH    AND    SOUTH    UNITED.  53 

circumstances,  but  he  has  won  the  regards  of  all  chris- 
tian hearts." 

Very  few  things  in  the  world  to-day  are  of  more  im- 
portance than  that  northern  and  southern  christians  in 
America  should  come  to  thoroughly  understand  each 
other,  and  enter  into  complete  sympathy  and  practical 
co-operation  for  the  evangelization  and  education  of 
the  freedmen.  There  must  be  this  comins:  too:ether  of 
mind  and  heart  and  hand,  or  our  negro  opportunity  for 
America,  and  through  the  American  negro  for  Africa, 
will  probably  not  be  improved.  It  does  not  seem  to  be 
God's  Avill  that  our  southern  brethren  should  be  so 
punished,  for  having  long  neglected  their  duty  of  lifting 
up  the  black  man  from  his  superstitions  and  ignorance, 
as  that  they  shall  be  debarred  from  one  of  the  grandest 
missionary  enterprises  of  the  next  twenty- live  years. 
Look  at  Africa  with  perhaps  its  two  hundred  millions 
of  people.  How  magnificently  it  is  opening  for  evan- 
gelization !  All  along  its  coast,  north,  south,  east,  west, 
the  o-ates  are  unlocked  and  swino-in^  free.  Livins^stone 
and  Stanley  have  led  the  way  into  the  vast  interior.  But 
how  men  are  falling  I  Never  in  Asia  have  the  missionary 
ranks  been  so  terribly  decimated.  Never  in  Europe,  nor 
in  South  America,  nor  in  the  isles  of  the  sea  has  there 
been  anything  like  such  mortality  among  the  messengers 
of  the  churches.  White  men  evidently  are  not  the  mis- 
sionary material  for  at  least  the  vast  equatorial  regions 
of  Africa.  Thicker  skulls,  and  woolly  hair,  and  tougher 
skin  are  needed  to  shelter  the  consecrated  lives.  The 
few  experiments  and  imperfect  results  of  Liberian  colo- 
nization do  not  darken  the  hope  that  the  evangelizing 
want  of  that  great  continent  will  yet  be  met  by  hun- 
dreds of  qualified  christian  missionaries  from  among 
our  southern  freedmen.  But  meanwhile  antedated 
sectional  misunderstandins^  and  estrano^ement  must 
cease ;  particularly  must  christians  north  and  south 
join  together  heart  and  hand  ;  the  new  blood  of  our 
churches  must  not  have  the  virus  of  the  old ;  watch- 
ful guards  must  stand  on  both  sides  to  keep  out  misrep- 
resentations and  all  dishonest  political  intermeddling. 


54  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

It  is  one  work ;  the  workers  must  be  one.  And  for 
all  this  prayer  should  ascend  continually. 

With  a  friend,  who  is  one  of  the  brokers  of  the  Min- 
ing Stock  Exchange,  I  went  in  of  a  morning  to  see  how 
the  "bulls  "  and  the  "bears"  carried  on  their  business. 
In  noise  and  gesticulation  and  general  confusion  they 
outrival  both  New  York  and  Chicago.  The  only  place, 
which  I  have  ever  seen,  that  equals  the  San  Francisco 
Exchange  is  the  Paris  Bourse.  As  the  presiding  officer, 
during  the  sales,  told  otf  the  long  list  of  companies  en- 
gaged in  California  and  Nevada  mining,  I  thought  of  an 
equally  long  list  of  the  various  agencies  of  the  Christian 
Church  at  work  mining  the  gold  and  silver  out  of  mil- 
lions of  pockets,  and  distributing  it  through  manifold 
labors  in  evangelizing  services  throughout  the  world. 
The  Congregationalists,  with  nearly  four  hundred  thou- 
sand communicants,  contribute  annually,  through  their 
American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions, 
nearly  a  half  million  of  dollars.  Lately  their  treasury 
received,  what  is  not  included  in  this  average,  a  legacy 
from  Asa  Otis  of  Connecticut  of  about  one  million  of 
dollars.  Their  rate  of  contributions,  then,  for  foreign 
missions  is  a  little  over  a  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents 
per  member.  The  Presbyterians,  with  nearly  seven 
hundred  thousand  communicants,  raise  almost  six  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  annually  for  their  foreign  work, 
which  is  about  eighty-five  cents  per  member.  The 
Methodist-Episcopal  Church  of  the  North,  with  a  mil- 
lion seven  hundred  thousand  communicants,  contributes 
yearly  about  three  hundred  thousand  dollars,  which  is 
only  a  little  over  seventeen  cents  a  member.  The  con- 
stituency of  the  American  Baptist  Missionary  Union  do 
not  number  over  a  million,  which  would  give,  at  nearly 
three  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year,  an  average  an- 
nual contribution  of  about  thirty  cents  per  member.  It 
is  to  be  said  for  both  Methodists  and  Baptists  that  their 
special  eflbrts  are  being  directed  to  home  evangelization 
throughout  the  West  and  South.  Also  that  their 
churches  generally  include  a  larger  portion  of  the 
working  classes   than   Episcopalian,    Presbyterian  and 


EXPENDITURES.  55 

Congregationalist  churches ;  and,  moreover,  that  near- 
ly one-third  of  their  numerical  strength  m  the  country 
is  in  the  still  unreliable  colored  churches. 

The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  America,  with 
its  nearly  three  hundred  thousand  communicants  in 
three  thousand  parishes,  raises  annually  for  foreign 
missions  not  far  from  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars,  that  is,  fifty  cents  apiece.  Although  half  of 
the  Episcopalian  parishes  do  not  as  yet  contribute  any- 
thing, yet  of  late  from  year  to  year  there  has  been  a 
marked  increase  of  interest  and  co-operation  in  foreign 
evangelizing  work.  The  upwards  of  five  hundred  Re- 
formed, late  Dutch  Reformed,  churches  of  our  country 
are  not  much  behind  the  Congregationalists  and  Presby- 
terians. The  Moravian  Brethren,  who  are  mostly  in- 
deed in  Europe,  and  yet  who  have  a  branch  of  their 
church  organization  in  America,  surpass  nearly  all 
others,  even  as  they  have  for  many  years,  in  the 
average  of  their  foreign  missionary  contributions.  They 
have  only  twenty-one  thousand  members,  and  yet  they 
raise  nearly  twenty-three  thousand  dollars  annually. 
The  Evangelical  Lutheran  Church  has  missions  in 
India,  Africa  and  Japan,  but  has  confidence  to  ask 
as  yet  from  her  large  constituency  only  fifteen  thousand 
dollars  ^''early  contributions.  The  southern  Baptists 
out  of  their  poverty  (though  they  cannot  much  longer 
be  called  poor  with  their  enormous  cotton  crops  and  im- 
proved free  labor)  raise  from  thirty  to  fifty  thousand 
dollars,  and  support  efficient  missions  in  Rome,  China, 
and  at  other  important  points.  The  Methodists,  south, 
the  United  Presbyterians  and  the  Cumberland  Presby- 
terians are  also  providing  for  a  goodly  number  of  inter- 
esting stations. 

The  American  Missionary  Association,  a  union  enter- 
prise, having  for  its  ultimate  object  African  missions,  but 
its  present  labors  mostly  among  the  freedmen,  receives 
and  expends  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  dollars 
annually.  The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  equals  in 
its  outlay  for  home  missions  its  foreign  quota,  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars ;   likewise  nearly  with 


56  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

the  Methodists  and  Baptists,  both  of  them  making 
their  home  mission  expenses,  not  including  publication 
work,  equal  al)out  three  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
The  Bible  societies,  the  Sunda}-  School  Union,  the  tract 
societies,  the  various  denominational  publication  houses, 
the  church  building,  grant  and  loan  funds,  the  Young- 
Men's  Christian  Associations,  and  many  other  more  or 
less  obscure  agencies,  represent  the  American  Church 
at  work  for  the  missionary  evangelization  of  the  world. 
For  both  our  home  and  our  foreign  work  there  are 
many  divisions  of  labor;  but,  as  Dr.  Mullens,  —  an 
eminent  servant  of  God,  who  has  since  fallen  in  Africa, 
—  said  at  the  Mildmay  Conference  on  foreign  missions, 
in  London  in  1878,  "The  variety  we  exhibit  in  our 
churches,  our  societies,  our  modes  of  worship,  is  not 
an  evil  to  be  mourned  over ;  it  is  a  positive  blessing  to 
our  cause."  And  Professor  Christlieb  has  well  added, 
"  The  diversity  in  our  methods  of  training  for  the  for- 
eign field  is,  beyond  question,  more  calculated  to  form 
a  missionary  of  strongly  individual  character,  than  is 
Rome's  principle  of  subjecting  all  alike  to  a  uniform, 
compulsory  system  of  blind  obedience." 

A  marked  feature  of  late  of  the  home  agencies  of 
the  Church  for  evangelization,  both  in  our  own  country 
and  through  other  destitute  regions  of  the  world,  is  the 
organization  of  numerous  women's  societies,  generally 
as  adjuncts  to  the  other  and  male-officered  organizations 
of  the  various  denominations.  It  is  certain  that  the 
women  of  the  Church  especially  should  be  zealous  in 
missions.  In  their  social  position  they  owe  much  more 
to  Christianity  than  do  men.  Ever  since  the  Lord 
honored  the  virgin  Mary  above  all  human  kind  with 
the  maternity  of  Himself,  womanhood,  wherever  Chris- 
tianity has  prevailed,  has  been  a  purer  and  a  nobler 
estate.  Last  year  the  receipts  of  the  Woman's  Foreign 
Missionary  Society  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  were 
over  $127,000,  to  which  should  be  added  nearly  $35,000 
from  auxiliary  societies.  The  Women's  Society  of  the 
Methodist  Church  has  appropriated  this  year  $71,000. 
The  three  Woman's  Boards,  acting  as   auxiliary  to  the 


women's  societies.  57 

American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Mis- 
sions, raised  last  year  upwards  of  $126,000.  The 
Baptist  Woman's  Foreign  Societies  contribute  $65,000 
annually.  And  there  are  many  other  movements  along 
this  line  of  christian  activity,  in  the  interest  of  both 
foreiirn  and  home  evang-elization.  A  few  causes  of 
anxiety,  however,  naturally  suggest  themselves ;  and 
yet  it  is  nothing  more  than  right  to  frankly  acknowl- 
edge that  generally  the  theoretical  difficulties  have  not 
appeared  in  practice.  Perhaps,  however,  it  is  because 
largely  they  were  so  anticipated.  Women  have  a  very 
happy  knack  of  avoiding  difficulties  which  have  been 
pointed  out  by  men,  and  thus  of  illustrating  to  the 
men,  that  they  are  not  after  all  such  superior  beings. 
But  it  is  well  to  remember  that  it  is  not  desirable 
for  w^omen's  societies  to  occupy  such  a  position  with 
such  resources,  as  that  it  shall  come  to  be  the  men's 
society  as  the  missionary  agency  for  the  male  members 
of  our  churches,  and  the  women's  society  as  the  mis- 
sionary agency  for  the  female  members.  It  was  not 
the  original  intention  to  have  any  such  division  in  the 
household  of  faith.  It  was  distinctly  proposed,  —  and 
therein  is  the  charm  and  warrant  of  the  whole  move- 
ment, —  that,  without  withdrawing  contributions  from 
the  regular  agencies,  but  the  rather  increasing  them,  chris- 
tian women,  impressed  with  the  special  obligation  of 
their  sex  to  Christianity,  and  with  the  demand  of 
degraded  womanhood  everywhere  for  the  same  uplifting 
power,  band  themselves  together  for  special  sacrifices 
to  ensure  more  than  all  possible  general  efforts  for  the 
evangelization  of  women.  Those,  who  simply  transfer 
their  contributions  to  the  treasuries  of  the  women's 
movements,  fall  out  of  line  of  the  beautiful  and  grand 
intention,  that  has  received  so  many  signal  tokens  of 
the  divine  approval.  It  is  also  desirable  that  th6 
auxiliary  character  of  these  extra  movements  should  be 
carefully  retained.  And  the  burden  of  this  responsi- 
bility the  sisters  themselves  should  carry,  for  it  places 
men  in  very  embarrassed  circumstances  when  they  are 
obliged  to  be  the  monitors  of  any  such  suggestion.     It 


58  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

should  not  escape  the  minds  of  the  women,  that  those 
many  of  their  numl^er,  who  are  coming  to  the  front  as 
custodians  and  counsellors  of  vast  missionary  interests, 
can  hardly  expect,  with  all  their  excellencies  of  judg- 
ment, to  step  at  once  into  responsibilities  for  which 
many  brethren  have  been  in  special  training  for  many 
years.  Then,  too,  when  we  consider  the  thorough  cool 
judgment,  that  needs  to  be  passed  upon  c^uestions  of 
qualification  for  appointment  and  of  man}^  details  of  the 
work  upon  the  field  ;  and  when  we  all  remem])er,  as  we 
do  Avith  unspeaka])le  gratitude  to  God  who  made  our 
mothers  and  Avives  and  sisters  and  daughters,  Avith  Avhat 
larger  and  more  tender  hearts  he  has  endoAved  them, 
and  hoAV  blessedly  judgment  and  reason  and  experience 
are  often  sAvept  away  by  the  flood-tide  of  their  affec- 
tions, Ave  are  convinced,  that,  Avhile  women  can  over- 
come difficulties  Ivetter  than  men,  men  are  better  consti- 
tuted to  avoid  them,  and  that  it  Avill  be  Avisdom  for  all 
Avoman's  missionary  Boards  to  "act  upon  this  principle  in 
their  relation  to  the  Boards  of  the  general  agencies. 
Besides  it  is  very  desirable  that  this  supplementary  and 
adjunctive  idea  be  impressed  upon  all  the  missionaries, 
Avho  go  out  under  the  specially  fostering  care  of  the 
Avomen's  societies.  These  female  missionaries  find  their 
largest  sphere  of  usefulness  by  fitting  right  into  the 
Avork  of  those  sent  out  by  the  general  societies.  Inde- 
pendent antagonistic  judgment  Avill  be  most  unfortunate 
and  disastrous.  The  best  guard  against  this  evil  is  the 
prayerful  and  thoughtful  maintenance  at  home  on  the 
part  of  all  the  Avomen's  societies  of  a  heartily  co-oper- 
ating, supplementary  and  adjunctive  relation  to  the 
general  missionary  societies  of  the  Church. 


AMERICAN-CHINESE    QUESTION.  59 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"  A  DAY  AT  THE  CLIFFS." 

HE  CLIFFS "  are  the  best  place  in  the 
neighborhood  of  San  Francisco  both  for 
those  who  want  to  get  into  the  w^orld, 
and  for  those  Avho  want  to  get  out  of  it. 
Our  latter  suggestion  has  nothing  to  do 
with  suicide,  although  for  that  purpose 
also  there  are  lofty  and  precipitous  rocks,  quite  con- 
veniently near  to  the  immense  shoals  of  sea-lions  that 
flounder  around  and  lazily  sun  themselves,  and  might 
be  edified  with  such  exhibition  of  human  foolishness. 
It  is.  the  fashionable  drive  for  San  Francisco  society, 
their  Central  Park,  their  Rotten  Row,  their  Bois  de 
Boulogne.  But  there  are  hours  in  the  day  wiien  the 
drive  and  the  l:)each  are  entirely  deserted,  and  "  The 
Clitfs  "  are  the  place  in  which  to  be  left  delightfully 
alone,  with  their  weird  aspect,  their  feet  swept  by  the 
ceaseless  rolling  of  the  Pacific,  their  brows  furrowed 
with  the  storms  of  centuries,  and  their  arms  holding 
open  "the  Golden  Gate"  to  the  commerce  of  the  world. 
It  is  a  better  place  for  thought  than  even  the  famous 
cliffs  of  Newport,  or  the  Palisades  of  the  Hudson. 
Here  I  invite  my  reader  to  sit  down  with  me,  for  there 
are  some  other  subjects  of  American  and  missionary  in- 
terest we  need  to  consider  before  embarking  on  our 
ocean  voyage  for  the  far-off  empire  of  Japan. 

My  mind  is  full  of  this  American-Chinese  question. 
We  have  found  it  the  staple  subject  for  conversation 
in  both  Nevada  and  California.  I  did  not  know  that 
Americans  could  be  so  easily  frightened,  for  certainly 
we   have  not   met   half  as  many  Chinamen  as  we  ex- 


60  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

pected.  There  are  no  millions  of  them  flooding  this 
part  of  our  hospitable  country  ;  I  doubt  if  there  are 
many  over  a  hundred  thousand.  They  huddle  together 
very  thickly  indeed  in  that  part  of  San  Francisco  called 
Chinatown,  but  elsewhere  you  only  meet  them  here 
and  there.  They  are  very  orderly  and  very  in- 
dustrious. I  called  at  the  city  prison,  to  see  what 
proportion  of  law-breaking  citizens  were  from  the 
Flowery  Kingdom,  and  found  but  two  among  seventy- 
live  prisoners.  Every  Chinaman  in  the  streets  ap- 
peared decently  dressed,  even  in  his  own  exclusive 
quarter  of  the  city.  They  pack  together  in  that  ward 
much  too  closely  for  their  own  health,  or  that  of  the  sur- 
rounding population.  But  perhaps  for  this  they  are 
less  to  blame  than  the  real  estate  holders  and  the  voters 
of  San  Francisco.  In  their  own  country  Chinamen  are 
accustomed  to  crowd  their  dwelling  accommodations 
very  compactly,  but  then  for  only  one  or  two  stories, 
generally  but  for  one,  and  that  next  to  the  ground, 
where  nature  can  be  so  helpful  in  the  disposal  of  filth. 
It  is  altogether  American  to  make  them  go  up  so  many 
flights  of  steps  to  find  their  pigeon-holes.  If  these 
fifteen  to  twenty  thousand  Mongolians  were  spread  out 
in  the  suburbs  in  one-story  calkins,  they  would  be  more 
at  home  and  much  more  wholesome  neighbors.  Their 
habits  are  not  cleanly.  I  heard  of  one  who  fell  into 
water  all  over,  accidentally,  twelve  years  ago,  and 
claims  that  because  of  the  washing  he  has  never  been 
well  since.  They  say  it  gives  them  the  "duza-tong." 
With  their  rough  towels  dipped  in  hot  water  they  man- 
age, however,  to  keep  their  faces  and  hands  in  respect- 
able appearance,  an  accomplishment  unknown  to  many 
others  who  reside  in  America.  Still  those  towels  are 
sometimes  somethino^  dreadful.  Enterincf  an  audience 
once  of  five  hundred,  one  of  them,  according  to  custom, 
was  handed  me  for  use,  but  it  probably  had  been  all 
around  the  congregation  before.  Their  meat-shops  es- 
pecially are  curiously  uninviting.  Strange  arts  are  there 
practised  with  varieties  of  flesh  and  oils,  but  I  have  had 
delivered  by  first  class  American  butchers  fully  as  uu- 


CHINESE    IN    AMERICA.  61 

savory  specimens  in  that  line  of  eatables ;  the  only 
difference  was  that  I  knew  what  it  was  that  was  spoiled. 
Their  "demi-monde"  are  more  modestly  dressed,  and 
behave  themselves  a  great  deal  more  decently  than 
those  of  other  nationalities  in  the  streets  of  San 
Francisco.  Their  opimii  dens  are  dreadfully  stupid, 
loathsome  retreats  for  dissipation  ;  but  I  could  stand  them 
much  better  than  some  bar-rooms  in  America.  I  know 
the  low  life  of  San  Francisco  very  thoroughly.  With 
a  captain  of  the  police  force,  who  had  been  twenty  years 
in  service  here,  and  with  another  officer  of  the  law 
connected  with  the  criminal  court,  as  guides  and  pro- 
tectors, I  searched  this  city's  hells  from  bottom  to  top, 
and  can  bear  some  very  positive  and  reliable  testimony. 
Our  Chinese  immigrants  do  not  know  how  to  carry  on 
wickedness  so  devilishly  as  Americans.  There  is  an 
artlessness,  a  matter  of  course  about  their  immoralities 
and  gamblings  and  cruelties  and  dishonesties  that  places 
them  several  degrees  above  the  shrewd,  sneaking,  hypo- 
critical manners  of  our  corresponding  classes.  It  is 
sheer  nonsense  to  talk  so  much  of  their  corrupting 
our  morals,  or  leading  us  into  dissipation.  Our  de- 
graded and  criminal  classes  will  the  rather  corrupt 
them  the  more  and  plunge  them  into  still  lower  dissipa- 
tions. Said  an  Asiatic  to  me  with  most  emphatic  bit- 
terness, "  You  have  taught  us  crimes  against  ourselves 
and  others,  we  had  never  knoAvn,  and  perhaps  might 
never  have  discovered." 

The  special  objection  of  Americans  to  Chinamen  ap- 
pears to  be  that  they  work  too  cheaply.  We  are  recon- 
ciled to  their  having  been  on  hand  to  ensure  construction 
of  the  great  trans-continental  railway.  But  now  their 
direct  competition  with  various  American  industries 
seems  a  cause  for  general  dissatisfaction  and  alarm.  I 
had  a  little  experience  of  this  largely  advertised  cheap 
labor.  I  tried  Chinamen  at  washing,  but  I  never  paid 
such  exorbitant  prices  outside  of  New  York  Broadway 
hotels.  I  had  them  mend  me  some  steamer  chairs, 
and  the  way  they  did  manage  to  roll  up  the  dollars  on 
that  bill  of  expense  was  a  caution.      It  is  evident  they 


62  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

know  how  to  avail  themselves  of  the  demands  of  the 
market.  They  are  accustomed  at  home  to  ridiculously 
low  wages,  ten  to  twenty  cents  a  day  and  board  them- 
selves. When  they  first  come  to  our  country,  thirty  to 
forty  cents  a  day  seems  worth  the  crossing  of  the  Pacific. 
But  the  expenses  of  living  soon  exceed  their  expecta- 
tions, and  they  generally  seem  shrewd  enough  to  cast 
about  for  more  remunerative  employment.  I  believe, 
if  we  give  the  Chinese  a  fair  chance,  assisting  them  with 
reasonable  laws  and  public  sentiment,  they  will  adapt 
themselves  quite  sufiiciently  to  our  American  institu- 
tions to  make  them  a  welcome  factor  in  our  varied 
population.  The  new  treaty,  giving  to  us  the  right  to 
limit  the  number  of  immigrants,  seems  to  me  unneces- 
sary. The  universal  laws  of  labor  and  trade  would 
have  proved  suflacient  to  keep  the  number  within  our 
borders  at  about  the  right  proportion.  There  is  too 
much  of  a  tendency  among  our  people  to  rush  to 
legislation  for  the  amelioration  of  all  our  own  social, 
financial  and  political  woes.  Better  fewer  laws,  and 
more  faith  in  men,  more  confidence  in  the  natural 
poAvers  of  assimilation  and  expulsion  in  society,  more 
trust  in  the  sovereignty  of  public  opinion.  The 
mightier  currents  of  human  life  cannot  be  confined  be- 
tween the  banks  of  lesfislation.  Like  the  vast  orulf 
stream,  they  must  have  the  boundless  ocean  for  their 
home.  The  Mississippi,  the  Yang-tsi  and  the  Amazon 
are  small  rivulets  to  some  of  the  enormous  volumes  of 
water  that  sweep  directly  onward,  or  move  in  bewilder- 
ing circles  within  the  Atlantic  or  the  Pacific.  And  im- 
portant as  are  our  laws  for  the  repression  of  vice,  and 
for  the  encouragement  of  temperance,  and  for  both  the 
intellectual  and  moral  education  of  the  people,  and  for 
the  regulation  of  the  currency  of  the  country,  and  for 
the  manao^ement  of  the  enormous  immio^rations  from 
many  lands  ;  more  important,  and  more  to  be  trusted 
are  the  currents  of  public  sentiment,  of  national  con- 
science, of  kinship  feeling,  of  historical  sympathy,  of 
identified  interest,  and  of  religious  conviction. 

Right  here  Christian  Missions  have  another  cause  for 


NEW    TREATY    WITU    CHINA.  63 

congratulation,  in  the  deciding  influence  they  have  been 
enabled  to  contribute  toward  the  present  solution  of  our 
Chinese  question.  It  had  become  eminently  desirable, 
that,  if,  in  deference  to  the  mistaken  demands  of  that 
small  section  of  our  population  living  in  California, 
Oregon  and  Nevada,  the  Burlingame  treaty  was  to  be 
supplemented  by  another,  the  work  should  be  done  as 
wisely  as  possible.  To  the  experience  and  labors  of 
our  last  legation  were  added  the  Scldt  and  impressive- 
ness  of  a  new  diplomatic  delegation.  In  some  respects 
the  results  aimed  at  by  the  former  comported  with  the 
truest  statesmanship,  particularly  in  that  they  tinkered 
the  least  possible  the  old  treaty,  which  was  formed  upon 
broad  and  lasting  American  principles,  before  the  preju- 
dicing excitements  and  animosities  of  the  present  arose, 
and,  preserving  the  restraints  upon  our  easily  tempted 
legislation,  relegated  the  most  possible  of  the  elements 
of  the  problem  to  the  solving  influences  of  unwritten 
law.  But  more  heroic  treatment  was  decided  upon  by 
our  government,  and  it  became  of  incalculable  moment 
that  the  patient  should  not  sink  under  the  experiment- 
ing operation.  The  negotiations,  at  first  successful, 
commenced  to  drag,  and  then  to  prove  thoroughly  dis- 
courasfino^.  The  new  minister  and  his  associates  beofan 
to  feel  that  their  mission  was  an  utter  failure.  The 
grand  point  of  difficulty  was  want  of  confidence  on  the 
part  of  the  Chinese  plenipotentiaries.  It  seemed  to 
them  that  every  American  they  consulted  was  an  inter- 
ested party  in  pressing  the  treaty  negotiations.  They 
were  not  so  unwilling  to  do  what  appeared  to  be  asked, 
but  they  were  suspicious  of  the  men,  as  they  are  of  all 
foreigners,  and  of  their  underlying  motives.  Distrust 
was  settling  back  into  characteristic  Chinese  inaction, 
when  a  little  missionary  incident  changed  the  whole 
current  of  events,  brin2:ino:  about  the  execution  of  the 
treaty,  and  what,  it  is  to  l)e  hoped,  will  prove  the  solu- 
tion of  our  Chinese  problem. 

Two  currents  of  missionary  providence  joined  in  the 
event,  to  which  I  refer.  A  male  medical  missionary 
from  the  Independents  or  Congregationalists  of  Eng- 


64  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

land  had  been  stationed  at  Han  Kow,  six  hundred  miles 
up  the  Yang-Tsi-K}' ang.  A  change  seemed  desirable  ; 
and  it  was  a  question  whether  he  should  go  to  the  north 
of  China,  or  return  home  at  once  to  England.  Sundry 
providences  decided  him  upon  the  former  course,  and 
he  was  located  with  his  companion  temporarily  at 
Tientsin  on  the  Peiho  river.  This  great  city  is  half  of 
the  year  the  official  residence  of  the  celebrated  Li  Hung 
Chang,  the  powerful  viceroy  of  Chili.  He  is  the  leading 
Chinaman  of  the  empire,  the  capital  city  of  Peking 
being  Avithin  his  province,  his  wealth  being  enormous, 
his  arsenals  turning  out  excellent  weapons  for  w^ar,  the 
large  China  ^Merchants'  Steam  Navigation  Company 
being  under  his  presidency,  and  all  his  movements, 
since  his  conflict  with  the  Taiping  rebellion,  having 
been  apparently  directed  with  great  success  toward  the 
most  perfect  readiness  for  the  succession  to  the  throne, 
at  the  inevitable  overthrow  of  the  Tartar  Manchu 
dynasty.  Well,  this  viceroy's  favorite  wife  took  sick, 
and  was  nigh  to  death.  Every  Chinese  art  was  used 
for  her  recovery,  but  in  vain.  Li  Hung  Chang  was 
strangely  inconsolable.  The  thought  came  to  him,  — 
"  Why  not  call  in  the  foreign  doctor  ?  It  would  be  an 
awful  innovation  upon  our  aristocratic  reserved  cus- 
toms, but  Lady  Li's  life  might  be  saved."  The  mis- 
sionary was  summoned  in  great  state ;  but  after  all  he 
was  not  allowed  to  see  her,  and  it  wag  an  impossibility 
to  treat  her  successfully  wdthout  a  regular  medical 
examination.  So  it  was  decided  she  had  better  die, 
than  that  the  "  fan  qui  tsu,"  the  "  foreign  devil,"  be 
permitted  to  set  his  eyes  on  her.  But  the  American 
Methodists  had  located  a  regularly  educated  woman 
missionary  physician  at  Peking,  a  hundred  miles  away. 
Permission  was  given,  that,  if  she  should  come,  she 
might  make  a  personal  examination,  and  continue  to 
act  as  intermediary  and  counsellor  with  the  male  mis- 
sionary physician.  The  long  distance  was  traversed  by 
the  swiftest  messengers,  and  our  Methodist  sister  never 
Avent  over  a  hundred  miles  on  horseback  at  quicker 
pace.     The  efforts,   which  those   medical    missionaries 


MISSTOXARTES    IN    DIPLOMACY.  65 

made  with  much  prayer,  were  successful.  Lady  Li 
recovered,  and  the  grand  viceroy  was  delighted.  His 
gratitude  took  immediate  shape  in  the  founding  of  the 
Tientsin  hospital  under  the  missionary's  care  and  super- 
vision. His  example,  as  expected,  has  proved  wonder- 
fully contagious.  It  is  proper,  and  even  the  fashion 
now  among  the  upper  classes,  to  confide  in  foreign 
medical  skill.  The  women  physicians  especially  have 
their  hands  full.  This  Peking  doctress  is  of  course  at 
home  in  the  viceroy's  family.  They  are  greatly  at- 
tached to  her,  and  she  has  their  perfect  confidence. 
"  What  do  you  think,''  said  Li  Hung  Chang  to  her  one 
day  at  the  crisis  of  the  negotiations  upon  the  treaty  we 
have  mentioned,  —  "  What  do  you  think  of  this  new  min- 
ister of  your  country  to  our  court?"  "He  is  one  of 
the  best  men,"  she  replied,  "  in  our  country.  I  have 
his  name  upon  my  diploma.  And  he  is  one  of  my  most 
highly  esteemed  friends."  There  is  good  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  this  providential  conversation  turned  the  tide 
in  the  distrust  entertained  toward  our  legation  by  the 
Chinese  plenipotentiaries.  To  Christian  Missions  then 
must  be  given  credit  for  very  material  assistance  in  the 
settlement  of  this  great  difficulty.  I  believe  that  the 
missions  of  the  church  have  paid,  if  we  should  simply 
cast  up  the  aggregate  of  the  help  they  have  been  to  the 
statesmanship  of  civilization.  Should  India  meet  all 
the  various  evangelizing  expenses  among  her  vast  popu- 
lations, she  could  not  settle  her  obligation  to  the  Ser- 
ampore  missionaries.  Should  Burmah  relieve  entirely 
the  burden  upon  the  mission  treasury,  the  political 
services  of  Adoniram  Judson  and  of  his  heroic  martyr- 
wife,  Ann  H.  Judson,  would  not  be  requited.  Political 
affkirs  are  all  at  sea  in  South  Africa  because  the  counsel 
of  the  missionaries  has  been  undervalued.  At  a  meet- 
ing in  London  of  the  Geographical  Society  of  Great 
Britain,  I  saw  Sir  Bartle  Frere  go  to  sleep  while  a  mis- 
sionary was  giving  some  of  his  convictions  upon  African 
commercial  and  political  questions.  It  will  not  do  for 
statesmen  in  our  day  to  doze  over  the  fact  and  secular 
utility  of  missions.     None  know  the  people  as  do  the 


66  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

missionaries.  None  are  so  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
their  language,  their  modes  of  thought,  and  springs  of 
action.  None  know  how  to  treat  with  them  on  political 
questions  so  wisely,  and  with  such  likelihood  of 
success. 

I  have  formed  the  acquaintance  of  a  gentleman  in  San 
Francisco,  who  has  greatly  interested  me  on  tw^o  ac- 
counts. He  is  a  mining  expert,  and  his  wealth  is  an 
indication  that  he  has  been  successful  in  his  business. 
We  were  speaking  of  new  territory  to  be  developed  in 
gold  and  silver.  "  Did  you  ever  visit  such  a  part  of  the 
world?"  he  inquired.  "Yes,"  I  replied,  "and  it  is  the 
most  dreary,  uninviting  country  possible."  "But," 
said  he,  "I  have  been  there  this  year  prospecting  for 
some  American  and  English  capitalists,  following  out  a 
few  clews  that  are  furnished  in  Bible  history,  and  I 
have  rediscovered  the  richest  gold  mines  of  the  world." 
He  made  me  promise  1  would  not  reveal  the  secret. 
But  is  it  not  interesting  to  be  possessed  of  it?  Here  it 
lies  in  my  power  beyond  any  que.'stion,  of  course,  for  a 
mining  expert  has  spoken,  to  lead  all  my  friends  at  once 
to  untold  wealth.  All  I  would  have  to  do  would  be  to  give 
them  a  hint  as  to  the  name  of  the  stocks  on  which  to  put 
up  their  margins.  Possibly  I  have  it  in  my  power  to  affect 
the  California  mining  market  more  than  Yanderbilt  and 
Gould  have  to  turn  Wall  street  all  topsy-turvy.  Per- 
haps I  could  ])uy  up  all  the  three  trans-continental  rail- 
ways, and  hold  the  biggest  monopoly  of  the  world.  I 
might  be  able  to  distribute,  not  simply,  like  Asa  Otis,  one 
million,  but  lumps  of  five  or  ten  millions  around  to  all 
the  missionary  societies,  home  and  foreign.  Yet,  there 
is  this  difficulty;  I  am  pledged  to  keep  the  secret.  But, 
to  come  down  out  of  cloud-land,  where  so  many  of  these 
western  speculators  live, — their  dupes  are  mostly  in 
the  East,  —  I  really  believe  my  secret  is  not  worth  five 
dollars.  More  money  is  lost  than  made  in  wild  specu- 
lation, based  upon  just  such  unstable  foundations. 
When  will  Americans,  especially,  learn  wisdom?  I  be- 
lieve that  one  of  the  greatest  loads,  which  our  Chris- 
tianity has  to  carry  at  the  present  time,  is  this  spirit 


DANGERS    OF    SPECULATION.  67 

of  speculation.  Legitimate  business,  —  legitimate  both 
legally  and  nioralh%  —  avouIcI  not  so  deaden  the  spiritual 
life  of  our  churches,  nor  so  divert  the  attention  from 
those  great  evangelizing  opportunities  which  God  has 
thrown  wide  open  in  our  faces.  Let  any  member  of  a 
christian  church  go  into  stock  gam])ling,  let  the  cards 
be  marked  gold,  silver,  iron,  coal,  cotton,  real  estate, 
or  however  else,  and  the  chances  are  nine  in  ten  that 
his  religious  light  is  exthiguished,  that  the  most  of  his 
influence  henceforth  is  to  be  counted  on  the  side  of  the 
world,  and  that  the  most  difficult  of  all  evangelizing 
tasks  Avill  be  to  check  the  momentum  of  his  headlong 
career  from  God  before  it  shall  be  too  late.  No  new^s 
has  grieved  me  more  recently  than  that  some  of  my 
most  honored  brethren  in  the  ministry  have  allowed 
themselves  to  be  drawn  into  a  mining  slock  speculation, 
which  has  very  plainly  about  it  at  the  outset  the  fore- 
castino;  features  of  failure.  Much  as  I  shall  re£:ret  the 
loss  to  my  clerical  friends,  I  devoutly  hope  they  will 
lose  every  dollar  they  have  put  up  in  this  "wild  cat" 
speculative  gambling.  If  they  should  make,  they  would 
go  on  at  other  ventures,  losing  all  the  while  their  integ- 
rity of  character  and  their  spiritual  power  for  the  Lord's 
work.  If  they  never  get  a  dollar  back,  it  will  only  be 
money  that  is  gone, —  a  comparatively  trifling  consider- 
ation. In  place,  too,  they  will  acquire  some  experience, 
that  will  hel})  them  to  save  others,  and  to  unload  our 
churches  of  their  hindering  weight  of  reckless  specula- 
tion. I  pray  also  that  my  friends  may  find  their  paper 
worthless  very  soon,  for  this  strain  of  secular  uncer- 
tainty and  anxiety  must  be  doing  them  and  their  work 
incalculable  harm. 

My  new  acquaintance  proved  interesting  on  account 
of  another  relation,  Avhich  he  sustained  in  his  earlier 
life.  He  was  quite  a  military  man  among  the  local 
militia  and  irregular  forces  of  pioneer  California.  At 
the  time  of  the  first  serious  troubles  with  the  since 
notorious  Modoc  Indians  of  the  Lava  Beds,  he  held  the 
office  of  colonel.  His  command  was  sent  against  these 
very  savages.      He  surrounded  them,  and,   after  des- 


f>8  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

porato  fin^hting,  puccceflecl  in  slaughtering  all  their 
l)rMvos.  His  soldiers,  h(^  told  mo,  were  for  ''finishing 
the  job/'  that  is  killing  od'al!  the  women  juid  children. 
"I  did  wrong/'  hc^  said,  ''in  restraining  them,  for  all 
those  wretches,  who  have  since  given  our  government 
so  much  trouble,  were  boys  huddled  up  like  frightened 
she(\p  in  those  wigwams."  It  did  not  occur  to  him  that 
Mi(M'(^  was  anything  better  than  cold-blooded  l)utchery, 
with  which  to  prevent  the  Indinn  boys  becoming  fero- 
cious monsters  as  men.  He  was  a  thorough  convert  to 
(ictkm-mI  Sherman's  principle,  "that  the  only  good  In- 
diiin  is  a  dead  one."  But  American  Christianity  is  to 
be  congrntuJMted  over  the  ascendancy  which  its  princi- 
ples, as  applicable  to  the  Indian  (piestion,  have  secured, 
flustice,  sympathy,  beneficence  arc  felt  by  the  majority 
of'our  countrymen  to  be  equal  to  the  task  of  restraining 
and  elevating  the  natures  of  the  few  hundred  thousand 
descendants  of  tlie  aborigines  of  our  country.  These 
<ln-istian  [)rinciplcs,  when  carried  out  consistently  and 
})crsevcringly  and  with  good  judgment,  have  proved 
capable  of  (U)rrespon(ling  achievements  among  very 
many  other  equally  degraded  and  ferocious  popula- 
tions; why  should  they  not  here?  But  to  a  large  ex- 
tent they  have  here.  It  is  that  fact  to  whicli  the 
))cople  have  begim  to  open  their  eyes.  Long  prose- 
cuted, arduous,  sacrificing  labors,  on  the  part  of  many 
representatives  from  several  of  the  branches  of  the  Chris- 
tian (^hurch,  have  begun  to  bear  striking  evidences  of 
successful  result,  even  as  they  did  with  Elliott  at  Rox- 
bury,  the  elder  Kdwards  at  Stockbridge,  and  Kirkland 
among  the  Oneidas.  There  are  many  thousands  now  of 
christianized  and  thus  civilized  North  American  Indians, 
living  in  their  own  permanent  houses,  cultivathig  their 
own  often  very  extensive  farms,  worshipping  in  their  own 
sanctuaries,  supporting  scliools  for  their  children,  keep- 
ing the  laws  of  the  land  with  great  tidelity,  restraining 
vice  and  crime  in  their  several  communities  with  exem- 
plary vigilance,  and  watching  over  their  civil  rights  with 
great  intelligence  and  shrewchiess.  C)f  less  than  300,- 
000  of  our  Indian  ]iopulation  200,000  are  now  civilized, 


AMERICAN    INDIANS.  69 

and  nearly  30,000  are  members  of  christian  churches. 
About  13,000  of  their  children  are  attending  school,  and 
nearly  44,00()  Indians  can  now  read.  Their  numijer  of 
respectable  dwellings  has  increased  between  1>^G8  and 
1877  from  7,47(J  to  22,199.  In  the  same  period  their 
cultivation  advanced  from  54,207  acres  to  292,550  ; 
and  their  corn  products  from  467,303  bushels  to 
4,056,952.  Their  cattle  have  multiplied  in  equal 
ratio. 

People  capable  of  such  civilization  do  not  deserve  to 
be  treated  as  wild  animals.  Up  in  Wyoming  territory, 
as  our  trans-continental  train  stop])ed  at  one  of  those 
unpretending  stations,  I  went  out  to  hold  conversation 
with  several  frontiersmen  u[)on  the  i)latform,  who  were 
dressed  in  buckskin  from  head  to  foot,  and  armed  with 
the  most  approved  rifles  and  revolvers.  "Do  you  meet 
with  any  Indians  around  here?"  "Oh,  yes,"  they 
laughingly  replied,  as  they  patted  their  guns  or  their 
cartridge-ljoxes,  "and  we  have  frequent  arguments  with 
them."  AVe  need  a  sufficient  army  at  the  AVest  to  over- 
awe both  the  lawless  frontiersmen  and  the  lawless  In- 
dians. Then  if  our  home  de])artment  can  keep  faith 
with  them  all ;  if  it  can  deal  with  the  Indians  uniformly, 
in  negotiation,  treaty,  and  fulfilment,  as  if  they  had 
rights  which  white  men  arc  bound  to  respect ;  and  then 
if  the  Christian  Churches,  encouraged  by  results  already 
so  strikingly  apparent,  will  enter  more  vigorously  into 
the  evangelization  of  our  American  Indians,  I  believe  this 
part  of  our  population  would  ere  long  prove  a  valuable 
element.  Despite  the  savage  (cruelty  to  which  they  have 
often  been  driven  by  their  own  wicked  natures  and  by 
the  injustice  and  brutality  of  the  white  man,  the  red 
skins  of  our  virgin  plains  and  our  primeval  forests  are 
a  noble  race.  They  possess  elements  of  character, 
beauties  of  religious  sentiment,  features  of  language 
and  possibilities  for  the  future,  that  render  it  exceed- 
ingly undesirable  that  they  should  become  extinct. 
And  they  will  not,  if  christian  principles  triumph  in 
their  behalf.  We  read  in  jjapers  daily  of  horrible 
murders     committed     by     Irish     and     Geniians     and 


70  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

negroes ;  but  who  proposes  therefore  the  extermina- 
tion of  these  races?  Let  every  effort  be  made  to  re- 
deem our  national  record  with  the  aboriginal  tribes. 
Let  us  not  forget  Gnadenhutten  and  Shoenl)run,  their 
Cawnpore,  where  we  whites  were  the  Sepoys.  Let  all 
possible  support  be  given  to  the  successful  prosecution 
of  the  "  peace  policy."  Let  the  churches  reinforce  their 
missions  among  them,  remembering  the  example  of 
Elliott,  Brainerd,  Kirkland,  Worcester,  Boudinot, 
Whitman,  Spaulding,  Byington,  Gleason,  Wright, 
Riggs  and  Williamson.  And  let  many  more  and  un- 
ceasing prayers  ascend  for  all  possible  prosperity  to 
Lidian  evangelization. 

It  is  very  painful  to  reflect  upon  the  general  situation 
of  the  churches  here  in  San  Francisco  and  throughout 
California.  They  have  had  good  opportunities,  but 
have  not  improved  them.  Money  here  has  been  held 
in  great  abundance,  and  been  distributed  Avith  lavish 
generosity.  A  large  number  of  well-built  sanctuaries, 
free  of  debt ;  various  educational  institutions  under 
christian  auspices,  with  all  the  material  for  the  most 
effective  work  ;  and  different  missionary  organizations 
fully  organized  and  thoroughly  equipped  ;  these  should 
be  the  inventory,  but  they  are  not.  There  is  a  five- 
million-dollars  hotel,  and  a  four-million -dollars  city 
hall,  and  several  residences  costing  from  on:-  hundred 
thousand  to  five  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  there  is 
lavish  outlay  everywhere  ;  but  with  rare  exceptions  the 
houses  of  God  are  dilapidated  aff-nrs,  the  ministry  is 
meagrely  supported,  and  the  missionary  treasury  is 
contracted  to  sadly  insignificant  proportions.  If  I  am 
correct  in  my  observations,  the  christians  of  California 
have  been  living  too  much  for  themselves,  and  therefore 
this  blight  from  heaven  has  fallen  upon  them.  They 
have  gone  upon  the  principle  of  having  their  churches 
and  ministers  and  Sunday  schools  and  societies  all  for 
themselves.  They  illustrate  the  Scripture,  "  There  is 
that  scattereth,  and  yet  increaseth ;  and  there  is  that 
withholdeth  more  than  is  meet,  and  tendeth  to  poverty." 
The  Christianity  of  California  has  not  been  character- 


CALIFORNIA    CHURCHES.  71 

ized  as  missionary  Christianity.  Nowhere  throughout 
our  country,  in  the  North  at  least,  have  such  wide  open 
doors  for  evangelizing  activity  among  the  neglected 
classes  been  left  unentered.  Churches  in  our  day  to  be 
blessed  must  bless  others.  Would  they  be  ministered 
unto  with  large  congregations,  with  generous  public 
support,  and  with  all  the  indications  of  thrift  and  ag- 
gressive power,  they  must  minister  unto  others.  They 
must  go  out  of  themselves  into  the  world  to  do  work 
for  Christ.  For  this,  I  know,  some  noble  brethren  here 
of  ]:)oth  the  ministry  and  laity  are  laboring.  And  it  is 
to  be  prayerfully  hoped  that  in  this  direction  also  the 
winter's  labors  in  co-operation  with  Messrs.  Moody  and 
Sankey  may  be  greatly  helped. 


72  CHKISTIAN   MitoblOJSb. 


CHAPTER  y. 

THE  PACIFIC   OCEAN. 

UR  steamship  is  of  the  Oriental  and  Occi- 
i dental  Line,  an  opposition  to  the  Pacific 
Mail  on  the  part  of  the  Pacific  Railway 
managers.  This  powerful  band  of  Ameri- 
can capitalists  wanted  more  absolute  control 
of  the  Japan  and  China  trade,  and  so,  with 
a  dash  of  the  pen,  they  contracted  for  three  Atlantic 
steamships  of  the  White  Star  Line,  the  "  Oceanic," 
"  Belgic,"  and  "  Gaelic."  The  latter,  commanded  by 
Captain  Kidley,  Avas  the  one  in  which  we  took  passage 
for  Yokohama,  Japan.  It  was  to  be  a  five-thousand 
miles  voyage,  and  yet  the  magnitude  and  apparent 
strength  of  the  shij^,  together  with  the  seemingly  well- 
qualified  character  of  the  officers  and  men,  gave  quite 
as  much  as  the  usual  confidence  at  ocean  eml^arkations. 
A  laro;e  number  of  friends  o^athered  to  ffive  us  our  fare- 
well  to  our  native  land.  We  were  pleased  with  the 
evidences  that  some  of  our  efforts  in  Christ's  name,  even 
in  San  Francisco,  were  cordially  received.  The  last 
paper  was  bought  that  would  give  us  the  news  of  the 
world  for  nearly  a  month.  Bouquets  of  exquisite  flow- 
ers were  placed  in  our  hands  and  in  our  state-room. 
All  that  the  kindest  hearts  could  suggest  of  Avord  and 
deed  was  furnished.  A  handful  of  postals,  with  last 
good-byes,  was  handed  ashore  to  be  scattered  over  the 
eastern  States.  Just  one  step  more  beyond  the  gang- 
plank before  it  is  drawn  in,  for,  perhaps,  never  again 
may  my  feet  press  their  native  land.  The  last  word 
spoken    with    my    highly-esteemed    friend.    Rev.   Dr. 


MEDLEY    OF   PASSENGERS.  73 

A ,  and  we  were  off.     Soon  the  "  Golden  Gate  " 

closed  upon  us,  and  we  were  out  on  the  Pacific. 

To  the  observant,  pleasing  and  instructive  incidents 
are  occurring  almost  every  day  upon  even  the  longest 
ocean  voyages.  A  large  steamship  is  quite  a  little 
world.  Ours  had  a  population  of  about  eight  hundred 
souls.  The  government  was  a  constitutional  monarchy, 
as  was  quite  proper  under  the  British  flag.  We  had  a 
curious  medley  of  passengers  ;  an  Englishman,  with 
caste  enough  to  pass  for  a  Brahmin  ;  a  Londoner,  who 
thought  in  his  American  bride  he  had  skimmed  off  all 
the  cream  of  our  continent ;  a  Welshman,  whose  words 
were  often  as  awkward  in  our  mouths  as  forceps ;  a 
Scotchman,  whose  conversation  was  distilled  metaphys- 
ics ;  a  British  army  officer,  who  was  a  perfect  gentle- 
man and  thoroughly  cultured ;  an  American,  who  is 
making  a  fortune  in  New  York  by  the  sale  of  Japanese 
and  Chinese  curios ;  a  good-natured  lady ;  a  young 
sprig,  who  smoked  as  much  of  his  father's  money  away 
as  he  could  ;  a  Japanese  nobleman  returning  to  his  home  ; 
a  Chinese  mandarin,  with  the  peculiar  opium  expression 
of  countenance ;  and  there  were  other  charactei^  of 
various  stations  and  nationalities  in  our  curious  medley 
of  passengers.  But  I  was  not  so  observant  of  them, 
nor  had  I  the  ability  of  my  wife  to  pick  up  the  odds 
and  ends  of  ocean  bric-a-brac  ;  so  for  omissions  here,  as 
also  at  many  other  points  of  our  two  years'  journey,  I 
must  refer  the  reader  to  Mrs.  Bainbridge's  book,  issued 
simultaneously  with  this,  entitled :  "  Round  the  World 
Letters." 

Two  of  the  men,  the  principal  a  Shanghai  steamship 
owner,  frequently  hurled  the  most  severe  judgments  at 
foreign  missionaries.  They  evidently  felt  like  the  Duke 
of  Somerset,  whom  Dr.  Duff  quotes  as  having  said  in 
Parliament  that,  '^  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  a  mission- 
ary must  be  either  a  fool  or  a  knave,  and  probably  the 
latter."  Their  want  of  information  vfas  plainly  equalled 
by  that  of  the  captain  of  the  Pacific  Mail  steamship 
"Alaska,"  who  inquired  of  Dr.  Ellinwood,  of  the  Amer- 
ican Presbyterian  Board :   "  Tell  me,  honestly,  do  not 


74  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

the  missionaries  in  China  all  carry  on  some  outside 
speculation  in  connection  with  their  work?"  At  times 
their  spirit  seemed  to  be  quite  similar  to  that  exhibited 
on  one  occasion  by  an  American  consul  in  Japan,  who, 
having  failed  to  persuade  some  missionaries  to  sell  him 
a  part  of  their  compound,  went  to  the  trouble  of  posting 
up  in  several  steamships  such  grossly  libellous  charges 
against  the  foreign  mission  work,  that  the  American 
Minister  felt  called  upon  to  })u])licly  contradict  the 
slanders  of  his  subaltern.  Occasionally^  we  joined 
freely  in  the  conversations,  at  first  with  the  immediate 
purpose  of  correcting  their  errors  and,  at  least,  modify- 
ing their  hostilities,  but  latterly  with  the  hope  only  of 
counteracting  the  ])ad  influence  they  might  have  upon 
the  other  passengers  at  our  table.  Especially,  I  had  a 
fatherly  solicitude  for  my  son.  When  they  sneeringly 
descril)ed  some  of  the  beautiful  dwellino^s  of  the  mis- 
sionaries,  which  had  been  pointed  out  to  them  in  their 
travels  and  residences  abroad  by  envious  merchants,  I 
Tvould  assure  them  that  the  houses  they  had  in  mind 
were  very  exceptional,  and  that  there  were  doubtless 
special  explanations  in  every  case,  other  than  their  pre- 
sumed missionary  worldliness  and  hypocrisy.  A  few  of 
our  missionaries  and  their  Avives  have  been  able  to  take 
w^ith  them  of  their  own  means  enough  to  erect  comfort- 
able and  durable  homes.  Some  of  the  missionaries  of 
the  Reformed  Church  in  Japan  were  deprived  of  their 
meagre  home  support  during  the  late  war  for  the  Union, 
and  were  compelled  to  take  position  in  the  Japanese 
government  schools,  and  at  the  very  time  when  extra- 
ordinary salaries  were  being  paid  for  English  instruc- 
tion. With  their  savings  under  such  enforced  circum- 
stances, they  were  enabled  to  erect  the  best  dwellings 
belonging  to  any  missionaries,  or  any  Mission  Board  in 
all  the  empire.  It  has  been  the  wise  policy,  whenever 
practicable,  to  build  permanent  structures.  Often  it  has 
been  necessary  to  combine,  for  w^ant  of  funds,  chapel 
and  school  and  hospital  and  dwelling  all  in  the  same 
building,  which  would  therefore  be  conspicuous  for  its 
size,  and,  to  those  ignorant  of  its  uses,  be  liable  to  sug- 


CYCLONE   IN    CONVERSATION.  75 

gest  invidious  comparisons.  The  average  of  salaries 
paid  to  the  foreign  laborers  from  all  the  denominations 
is  scarcely  a  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  this  when  it 
is  found  by  them  generally  that  many  of  the  necessaries 
of  life  cost  twofold  and  even  threefold  Avhat  they  do  at 
home.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  here  and  there  during 
the  years  the  cause  proves  to  be  misrepresented.  The 
Boards,  with  all  their  prayerful  care  in  examination  of 
candidates  for  foreign  work,  occasionally  make  mistakes. 
I  knoAv  of  two  well-authenticated  cases  of  public  scandal 
caused  by  the  shameful  conduct  of  regularly  appointed 
ambassadors  of  the  Gospel  to  heathen  lands,  —  but  only 
two  can  I  recall  among  the  thousand  missionaries  I  have 
met  abroad,  and  the  multitudes  of  others  seen  at  home, 
or  whose  names  and  laborious  lives  have  been  made  to 
me  more  or  less  familiar  through  correspondence,  his- 
tory and  the  religious  press.  But,  after  several  conver- 
sations alonof  the  line  of  these  and  kindred  thouo'hts,  it 
was  very  plain  that  the  old  adage  is  true  :  "  A  man  con- 
vinced against  his  will  is  of  the  same  opinion  still."  It 
was  also  evident  that  the  majority  at  least  of  the  others 
at  the  table  had  become  somewhat  fortified  against  the 
bitter  prejudicing  efforts  of  these  two  savage  anti-mission 
phobiaists. 

For  a  few  days  nothing  was  said  upon  the  well-worn 
subject,  and  I  felt  quite  relieved  and  contented.  But 
it  was  the  calm  preceding  the  storm,  a  storm  of  the 
most  disastrous  kind  ever  to  be  met  on  the  waters, 
more  or  less  profound,  of  social  conversation.  To  the 
dinner4able  one  day  my  two  antagonists  came  armed 
with  a  book.  As  their  own  testimony  had  been  so 
often  questioned,  they  would  now  ha^'e  a  more  for- 
midable weapon.  Their  spirits  had  evidently  revived, 
and  their  eyes  fairly  flashed  with  eagerness  for  the  an- 
ticipated feast  of  clerical  discomfiture.  "Have  you  ever 
seen  this  ])ook  by  Rev.  W.  E.  GrifBs,  entitled  'The 
Mikado's  Empire'?"  "  Oh,  yes,"  I  replied,  "and  read 
it  some  two  years  ago  with  great  pleasure."  "A  capital 
book,"  interrupted  the  captain  of  our  steamer ;  ''  it 
must  be  esteemed  as  by  all  odds  thus  far  the  best  work 


76  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

that  has  been  written  upon  Japan."  "Permit  me  then 
to  ask  you  to  read  to  us,"  continued  the  Shanghai  mer- 
chant, ''the  testimony  you  will  find  marked  with  pencil, 
and  which  bears  so  truthfully  upon  the  subject  we  have 
been  frequently  discussing."  With  perfect  confidence 
that  he  and  his  companion  had  fallen  into  their  own 
trap,  I  at  once  complied,  and  began  reading  aloud  the 
carefully  pencilled  testimony  of  authority,  that  Avas  to 
settle  the  whole  question  and  overwhelm  me  with  dis- 
comfiture. 

"  Missionaries  abound  in  Yokohama,  engaged  in  the 
work  of  teaching,  and  converting  the  natives  to  the 
various  forms  of  the  Christian  religion.  It  is  a  little 
curious  to  note  the  difference  in  the  sentiment  concern- 
ing missionaries  on  different  sides  of  the  ocean.  Coming 
from  the  atmosphere  and  influences  of  the  Sunday- 
school,  the  church,  and  the  various  religious  activi- 
ties, the  missionary  seems  to  most  of  us  an  exalted 
being,  who  deserves  all  honor,  respect  and  sympathy. 
Arrived  among  the  people  in  Asiatic  ports,  one  learns, 
to  his  surprise,  that  the  missionaries,  as  a  class,  are 
'Tvife-beaters,'  'swearers,'  'liars,'  'cheats,'  'hypocrites,' 
'  defrauders,'  'speculators,'  etc.,  etc.  He  is  told  that 
they  occupy  an  abnormally  low  social  plane,  that  they 
are  held  in  contempt  and  open  scorn  by  the  '  mer- 
chants,' and  by  societ}^  generally."  This  was  as  far  as 
was  marked  upon  the  page,  and  as  far  as  I  had  been 
requested  to  read.  "There,  sir,"  exclaimed  the  trium- 
phant Shanghai  gentleman,  "there,  sir,  is  truthful  tes- 
timony for  you ;  the  statement  of  that  author  cannot  be 
successfully  contradicted."  "Yes,  indeed,"  echoed  the 
other,  "  ]Mr.  Griffis  is  right ;  he  has  had  his  eyes 
opened  ;  he  sees  now  how  things  really  are."  "  Just  a 
moment,  gentlemen,"  I  replied ;  "  you  have  in  your 
eao^er  haste  neoflected  to  read  the  immediate  connec- 
tion ;  and,  if  you  will  permit  me,  which  English  fair- 
ness to  the  author  will  certainly  prompt  you  to  do,  I 
will  complete  the  paragraph  aloucl."  —  "  Certain  news- 
papers even  yet  love  nothing  better  than  to  catch  any 
stray  slander  or  gossip  concerning  a  man  from  whom 


77 

there  is  no  clanger  of  gunpowder  or  cowhide.  Old  files 
of  some  of  the  newspapers  remind  me  of  an  entomo- 
logical collection,  in  which  the  specimens  are  impaled 
on  pins,  or  the  storehouse  of  that  celel)rated  New  Zea- 
land merchant  who  sold  'canned  missionaries.'  Some 
of  the  most  lovely  and  lofty  curves  ever  achieved  by 
the  nasal  ornaments  of  pretty  women  are  seen  when  the 
threadbare  topic  of  missionary  scandal  is  introduced. 
The  only  act  approaching  to  cannibalism  is  when  the 
missionary  is  served  up  whole  at  the  dinner-table,  and 
his  reputation  devoured.  The  new-comer,  thus  sud- 
denly brought  in  contact  with  such  new  and  startling 
opinions,  usually  either  falls  in  with  the  fashion,  and 
adopts  the  opinions, — the  foundation  for  which  he  has 
never  examined,  — or  else  sets  to  Avork  to  find  out  how 
much  truth  there  is  in  the  scandals.  A  fair  and  impar- 
tial investigation  of  facts  usually  results  in  the  convic- 
tion that  some  people  are  very  credulous  and  exces- 
sively gullible  in  believing  falsehoods."'  A  dead  silence 
followed  this  reading  of  the  unanticipated  other  half  of 
that  paragraph.  Never  were  two  missionary-hating 
men  more  overwhelmingly  confused.  The  book  was 
requested  around  the  table,  that  each  might  see  for  him- 
self if  it  really  was  so.  Then,  with  my  companion  and 
son,  there  was  a  little  prayer-meeting  of  thanksgiving 
in  that  corner  starboard  stateroom.  No.  8. 

One  of  our  passengers  Avas  enthusiastic  upon  home 
missions,  but  he  did  not  know  about  sending  so  many 
missionaries  and  spending  so  much  money  upon  far-off 
heathen  nations.  In  his  own  church  he  gave  regularly, 
and  to  a  considerable  amount,  for  the  running  of  the 
mission  chapel,  for  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion in  his  city,  for  local  missions  in  his  state,  for  the 
christian  education  of  the  freedmen,  and  for  pioneer 
evangelization  in  the  West ;  but  there  his  sympathies 
and  giving  and  doubtless  his  prayers  also  stopped.  He 
was  not  in  favor  of  undertaking  other  work,  when  our 
hands  are  already  more  than  full  at  home.  It  was 
really  painful  to  see  a  christian  man  of  intelligence  and 
generosity   looking  so  selfishly  upon   all  evangelizing 


78  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

enterprise.  He  wanted  that  mission  chapel  and  that 
young  men's  association  to  prosper,  for  they  were  in 
his  own  city,  and  he  took  great  pride  in  anything,  })ar- 
ticularly  if  it  was  christian,  of  local  importance.  He 
was  greatly  attached  to  his  state ;  had  been  ])orn  in  one 
of  its  villages;  and  would  like  to  see  a  flourishing 
church  in  every  town.  He  believed  that  the  education 
of  the  negro  was  the  only  solution  of  our  southern 
problem  ;  and,  as  he  wanted  his  own  country  to  live 
and  become  still  greater  and  more  glorious,  he  had 
given  several  hundred  dollars  to  one  of  the  freedmen's 
institutes.  Crossing  the  Plains  he  often  felt  ashamed  as 
cin  American,  to  see  so  many  clusters  of  population 
without  good  church  privileges.  Beyond  our  shores 
there  was  nothing  that  was  his ;  no  longer  his  city,  his 
state,  his  country  ;  therefore  Christianity  had  no  special 
bearings  that  concerned  him.  Foreign  missions  ;  what 
particular  good  could  he  or  any  of  his  ever  derive  from 
them?  He  did  not  say  that  much;  nor  was  he  fully 
conscious  of  entertaining  a  principle  so  antagonistic  to 
the  whole  spirit  of  Christianity.  But  to  an  observer  it 
was  very  evident  that  there  Avas  a  great  deal  of  selfish- 
ness lurking  in  his  religious  thoughts  and  christian 
enterprises.  He  needs,  as  many  others  in  America 
need,  a  larger  measure  of  the  spirit  of  the  Master, 
"avIio  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister." 
It  is  the  special  Ijenediction  of  foreign  missions  upon 
us,  that  they  help  us  to  get  out  of  ourselves,  to  break 
away  from  always  doing  and  praying  about  what  shall 
directly  or  indirectly  beueiit  us,  and  to  come  into  closer 
fellowship  with  Him,  who  left  his  heaven  and  came  to 
our  earth,  not  to  make  heaven  richer  but  to  redeem  a 
lost  world.  jMissions  to  far-aAvay  lands  pay,  if  only  to 
render  our  home  Christianity  less  selHsh. 

There  were  two  others  of  our  ])assen<rers  Avho  seemed 
to  have  given  a  little  sober  thought  to  Christian  missions. 
One  of  them  had  made  up  his  mind  that  we  had  departed 
unwisely  from  the  early  church  custom  of  sending  forth 
self-supporting  missionaries.  He  called  my  attention  to 
the    eighteenth  chapter   of  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 


SELF-SUPPORTING    LABORERS.  79 

where  Paul's  life  of  a  year  and  six  months  at  Corinth  is 
described.  Writing  of  his  finding  the  home  there  of 
Aquila  and  Priscilla,  Luke  adds  —  "And  because  he 
was  of  the  same  craft,  he  abode  with  them,  and  wrought  : 
for  by  their  occupation  they  were  tentmakers."  Later 
on  in  the  sacred  record  we  learn  that,  to  the  elders  of 
the  Church  of  Ephesus,  whom  Paul  had  requested  to  meet 
him  at  Miletus,  he  was  nh\e  to  say  —  "  I  have  been  with 
you  at  all  seasons,  serving  the  Lord  with  all  humility  of 
mind,  and  with  many  tears  ....  I  kept  back  nothing 
that  was  prolital^le  unto  you,  but  have  showed  you, 
and  have  taught  you  publicly,  and  from  house  to  house. 
Wherefore  I  take  you  to  record  this  day,  that  I  am  pure 
from  the  blood  of  all  men.  For  1  have  not  shunned  to 
declare  unto  you  all  the  counsel  of  God."  Neverthe- 
less Paul  could  add  to  this  testimony  of  a  most  exem- 
plary missionary  life  :  "I  have  coveted  no  man's  silver, 
or  gold,  or  apparel.  Yea,  ye  yourselves  know,  that 
these  hands  have  ministered  unto  my  necessities,  and  to 
them  that  were  with  me."  No  doubt  this  earning  of  his 
own  livelihood  was  a  very  interesting  feature  of  the 
great  apostle's  ministry.  A  greater,  however,  than  Paul, 
whose  life  was  much  more  intended  for  our  example,  left 
the  carpenter's  l)ench,  when  he  commenced  his  special 
evangelistic  labors,  and  subsisted  upon  the  hospitality 
and  contributions  of  his  friends.  Paul  was  no  ordinary 
man,  but  one  of  tremendous  physical  and  mental  energy. 
Those  Englishmen,  Carey,  Sifirshman  and  Wai-d  of  the 
Serampore  mission,  were  in  these  respects  something 
like  him.  Very  few  could  do  as  they  did ;  rely  upon 
their  own  work  for  support,  and  yet  at  the  same  time 
eno^aoe  in  such  vast  and  effective  evanofelizinsf  labors. 
Paul  was  inspired  to  preach  and  write  divine  truth  and 
to  make  his  words  an  infallible  standard  for  all  time. 
But  he  was  not  empowered  to  be  an  infallible  standard 
himself  in  all  his  examples  and  methods.  His  celibacy 
may  have  been  best  for  him  under  all  his  circumstances, 
but  the  history  of  the  Church  has  abundantly  proved 
that  as  an  almost  uniform  rule  ministers  and  male  mis- 
sionaries should  be  married.     Paul's  work,  as  that  also 


80  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

of  his  companion  apostles  and  some  others,  was  thorough, 
masterly  and  adapted  to  permanent  results ;  but  we 
cannot  study  the  subsequent  history  of  those  early 
churches,  without  feelinof  that  there  must  have  been 
some  lack  in  their  religious  instruction.  Forty  years 
after  Paul  set  the  example  of  self-support  at  Corinth,  we 
find  that  the  Ephesian  church  had  departed  from  its  first 
love,  that  the  church  in  Pergamos  was  countenancing 
among  its  members  belief  in  the  doctrines  of  Balaam 
and  of  the  Nicolaitanes,  that  the  church  of  Thyatira  was 
encourao^ino^  social  scandals  amono^  its  members,  that  the 
church  in  Sardis  had  lost  nearly  all  its  spirituality  and 
become  a  disgrace  to  the  cause,  and  that  the  church  of 
the  Laodiceans  was  simply  lukewarm.  These  no  doubt 
were  typical  of  the  great  majority  of  the  Christian 
churches  at  the  close  of  the  first  century.  And,  when 
we  observe,  notwithstanding  the  wonderful  spread  of 
Christianity  during  the  subsequent  two  centuries,  Avhat 
lamentable  weaknesses  were  manifested  all  along  in  the 
conflicts  with  heresies  and  with  the  world,  and  finally, 
that  in  the  fourth  century,  the  Church  suffered  almost  an 
entire  eclipse  by  the  world,  we  aVe  tempted  to  look  for 
explanation  somewhat  in  the  very  methods  of  that  early 
Church.  Would  it  not  have  1)een  better  for  Paul  and 
the  other  early  founders  to  have  arranged  contributions 
from  the  churches  sufficient,  not  only  for  the  poor,  but 
to  enable  their  ministry  and  missionaries  to  give  their 
undivided  attention  to  the  more  thorough  instruction 
and  more  potent  leadership  of  their  people  ? 

The  history  of  the  Church  and  of  its  missions  has 
shown  abundantly  that  where  ministers  and  missionaries 
have  been  so  provided  with  support  by  others,  that  they 
could  lay  out  all  their  strength  upon  the  edification  of 
the  Church  and  the  evangelizing  of  the  world,  the  larg- 
est, the  most  permanent  and  the  most  effective  results 
have  followed.  As  society  becomes  more  hitelligent,  its 
demands  upon  its  ministry  become  more  exacting.  Their 
companion  in  the  field  or  at  the  bench  all  through  the 
week  is  not  the  one  to  be  ready  upon  the  Lord's  day  to 
give   them  their  needed  instruction.     The  papers  and 


BRAIN    AT    ITS    BEST.  81 

books  they  read,  mornings  and  evenings,  are  written  by 
specialists,  by  those  who  have  thrown  all  their  intel- 
lectual strength  into  certain  lines  of  inquiry ;  and  for 
such  readers  it  Avould  be  a  mental  letting  down  to  listen 
to  preaching  such  as  is  usually  produced  by  the  method 
of  non-support.  And  this  demand,  which  is  generally 
felt  in  our  home  churches,  is  becoming  to  an  extent 
potent  all  over  the  world.  Intellect  everywhere  is  being 
quickened.  The  mental  leaven  is  working,  not  only  in 
our  old  settled  communities,  but  even  among  western 
pioneers  and  southern  freedmen,  even  throughout  Asia 
and  Africa  and  South  America  and  the  furthermost 
islands  of  the  sea.  The  demand  is  coming  up  rapidly 
to  be  everywhere  for  brain  at  its  best.  That  must  be 
furnished  by  the  Christian  Church  through  its  ministers 
and  missionaries,  or  the  world  will  meet  the  demand 
with  a  godless  supply.  If  it  would  not  be  practicable 
in  our  day  for  the  pastor  of  a  church  capable  of  his  sup- 
port to  meet  the  demands  both  of  his  own  table  and  of 
his  congregation,  still  more  impracticable  is  it  to  send 
men  to  heathen  or  semi-christianized  lands,  Avhere  they 
have  entirely  different  languages  and  social  customs, 
and  expect  them  to  shift  for  themselves,  and  at  the 
same  time  do  their  evangelizing  work  thoroughly  and 
successfully. 

All  this  Christ  appreciated  and  anticipated,  and  yet 
his  directions  were  given  mostly  to  those  who  sur- 
rounded him,  and  who  were  to  work  chiefly  in  the  cir- 
cumstances among  which  he  left  them.  He  commanded 
the  twelve,  and  subsequently  the  seventy,  "  that  they 
should  provide  neither  gold,  nor  silver,  nor  brass  in 
their  purses,"  but  go,  without  undue  solicitude  about 
their  support,  into  any  city  or  town  upon  the  line  of 
their  mission  labors,  inquire  for  some  suitable  place  for 
hospitality  and  general  religious  conversation,  and  there, 
if  welcomed,  tarry  unhesitatingly,  "  for  the  laborer  is 
worthy  of  his  hire."  But  Christ  added  :  "  Go  not  from 
house  to  house."  He  did  not  ask  his  servants  to  become 
beggars — travelling  mendicants.  His  providence  should 
go  before  them  and  ensure  them  places  in  which  to  live 


82  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

and  labor.  But  there  was  a  good  deal  that  was  excep- 
tional, in  this  mission,  both  of  the  twelve  and  of  the 
seventy.  They  w^ere  all  endowed  with  miracle-working 
power.  They  were  enabled  to  heal  the  sick  with  a 
touch  or  a  word,  to  tread  on  serpents  and  scorpions,  to 
cast  out  devils,  and  the  apostles,  at  least,  to  restore  the 
dead  to  life.  These  gifts,  adapted  to  the  introductory 
work  of  Christianity,  were  evidently  temporar3\  They 
were  not  granted,  su1)sequently  to  the  apostolic  age, 
except  possibly  at  Avidely  separated  periods  of  both 
space  and  time.  If,  then,  the  subsequent  history  of 
evangelization,  particularly  that  of  modern  times, 
proves  that  where  practicable,  it  is  best  not  to  send 
the  messengers  of  the  gospel  unsupported,  not  to  unduly 
tempt  ministers  and  missionaries  to  over-anxiety  con- 
cerning their  livelihood,  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  these 
specific  directions  of  the  Master  w^ere  of  a  temporary 
character  alono-  with  the  miraculous  sfifts.  Nothino^  in 
them  is  inconsistent  with  a  fixed  salary,  provided  with 
christian  money,  enabling  a  servant  of  God  to  hire  and 
furnish  his  own  house,  and  to  live  w^ith  a  measure  of 
independence.  Before  this  better  plan  could  be  substi- 
tuted, from  the  resources  of  a  large  christian  constit- 
uenc}^  probably  the  faith  of  the  early  disciples  proved 
inadequate  to  their  mission.  Like  Peter  upon  the 
waters,  desiring  more  to  walk  by  sight,  they  generally 
sank,  on  the  one  hand,  to  a  misuse  of  solicited  hos- 
pitality, and  on  the  other  to  a  carrying  on  at  the  same 
time  secular  and  religious  employments.  Certainly  this 
is  the  result  of  many,  we  believe  of  all,  unnecessary 
experiments  in  the  history  of  modern  missions  to  apply 
a  method,  which  was  the  only  one  Christ  could  have 
adopted  at  first,  with  the  purpose  in  his  mind  of  com- 
missioninof  a  o:iven  number  to  devote  all  their  time  to 
evano-elization.  One  of  the  o^reatest  emliarrassments  to 
be  met  on  both  the  home  and  foreign  mission-fields  to- 
day, is  the  often  well-meant  and  pious,  but  headstrong 
and  impracticable,  effort  of  christians  to  apply  either 
Paul's  exceptional  example,  or  Christ's  exceptional  direc- 
tions to  the  twelve  and  seventy.     It  would  be  as  great 


CHRIST    CRUCIFIED    THE    POAVER.  83 

a  calamity  for  evangelization  to  go  back  to  either  that 
partnership  of  secular  and  religious  employment,  or  to 
that  receiving  only  of  support  furnished  on  the  field,  as 
to  return  to  the  days  of  treading  safely  upon  serpents 
and  scorpions,  of  the  healing  of  the  sick,  and  of  the 
raising  of  the  dead. 

That  other  })assenger  was  a  Unitarian.  The  peculiar 
charm  of  his  religious  affiliations  was,  not  that  any  special 
view  was  held  about  the  person  of  Christ,  but  that  re- 
ligious views  generally  were  held  so  loosely.  Chris- 
tianity with  him  was  a  matter  of  personal  character, 
and  no  mere  doctrinal  opinions  should  stand  in  the 
way  of  i)ringing  the  Vv'orld  within  the  influence  of  the 
Lord's  moral  teachings  and  example.  Indeed  he  could 
join  hands  with  any  upward  struggling  soul,  no  matter 
what  his  creed,  and  say,  "You  are  my  brother."  He 
believed  that  Christianity  in  America  would  never 
triumph  until  the  prevailing  orthodoxy  was  liberalized ; 
and  that,  as  to  the  christianizing  of  the  heathen  world, 
it  was  altogether  out  of  question,  until  we  were  ready 
to  invite  men  to  believe,  not  so  much  in  formulated 
opinions,  as  in  themselves,  in  their  intellectual  and 
moral  powers,  and  in  their  capacity  to  assimilate  all 
that 'is  good  and  unique  in  the  gospel  of  Jesus.  To 
this  Professor  Christlieb  has  well  replied,  ''  If  it  be  pro- 
posed to  come  to  the  assistance  of  our  old  faith  wnth  a 
modern  science,  which  would  seek  to  volatilize  the  facts 
of  redemption,  in  order  that,  thus  aided,  it  maybe  able 
to  cope  with  heathen  culture,  we  must,  without  in  any 
way  undervaluing  an  intellectual  christian  training,  take 
leave  to  maintain  that,  to  give  up  the  historical  basis 
for  the  biblical  doctrine  of  salvation,  is  to  lessen  and  to 
weaken  the  ability  of  the  gospel  to  produce  moral  and 
spiritual  results,  and  to  dry  up  the  inmost  spring  of  its 
regenerating  power.  All  belief  in  the  omnipotence  of 
education  and  culture  is  but  the  superstition  and  the 
glaring  error  of  the  present  day.  What  pleases  the 
spirit  of  the  age  icilJ  not,  on  that  account  overcome  the 
world;  only  fhal  will  which  he:ils  her  deepest  wounds, 
by  iniji.i'ting  a  new  power  of  life  and  soul  —  no  device 
of  man,  but  the  gift  of  God." 


84  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Yes,  THE  power  of  Christianity  is  what  the  world 
esteems  to  be  its  weakness.  Our  Unitarian  fellow  pas- 
senger belongs  to  a  great  multitude,  which  began  at 
Jerusalem  to  surround  the  crucified  Jesus,  exclaiming, 
"Let  Christ,  the  king  of  Israel,  descend  now  from  the 
cross,  that  we  may  see,  and  believe  ! "  But  herein  is 
the  very  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  Here  alone  is 
found  what,  on  boih  its  Godvviud  and  its  manward 
sides,  meets  the  exigencies  of  the  sinner's  case.  To  be 
'^  liberal "  with  Chri.stiiinity  is  to  exercise  the  most  cruel 
possible  tyranny  over  the  souls  of  men.  It  throws 
them  bones  without  meat  when  they  are  starving.  It 
invites  them  perishing  with  thirst  to  promised  pools  of 
refreshing  water,  that  are  only  after  all  a  deceptive 
mirage.  But  Christ  crucified  and  risen  again  is  win- 
ning multitudes  all  over  the  world.  It  would  seem 
that  the  simple  numerical  successes  of  evangelization  in 
our  day  would  open  the  eyes  of  the  "liberal"  to  the 
fair  inference  that  no  modification  of  the  prevailing 
christian  belief  is  needed  for  universal  triumph.  It 
does  not  in  our  time,  even  as  it  has  not  in  former  times, 
capture  first  the  intellectual  strongholds  of  a  people. 
The  plan  is  that  of  Paul,  who  received  it  from  the  spirit 
of  God.  "Not  many  wise  men  after  the  flesh,  not  many 
mighty,  not  many  noble  are  called ;  but  God  hath 
chosen  the  foolish  things  of  the  world,  to  confound  the 
wise."  The  majority  of  mission  converts  are  from  the 
lower  orders  in  society,  "but,"  as  the  German  author 
before  quoted  inquires,  "has  not  the  history  of  all  mis- 
sions, ancient  and  modern,  shown  that  the  instinct  of 
the  people,  in  accepting  the  gospel,  has  ever  anticipated 
the  self-complacent  ignorance  of  the  wise  and  the 
learned?"  The  power  of  Christianity  is  not  limited 
to  the  humbler  classes,  but  for  the  greater  glory  of 
God  it  proceeds  for  its  most  practical  Avorking  from 
them  upward,  not  the  reverse.  The  easiest  thing  in 
the  world  is  intellectual  pride,  and  God  will  not  honor 
it.  To  the  cross-uplifted  Eedeemer  must  the  world 
look  and  live.  Around  the  cross  must  the  Church  be 
rallied  for  uni\ ersal  conouest.      And  onb/  beiioa'h  the 


85 

shadow  of  the  cross  will  he  found  those  who  have 
enough  of  the  Master's  self-denial  and  consecration  to 
go  to  all  the  lowly  and  benighted  throughout  the  world 
with  the  message  of  divine  peace.  But  for  the  cross 
there  would  be  no  missionary  enterprise  to-day.  Deny 
the  cross  and  substitute  a  christianized  culture,  and 
before  ten  years  all  the  thousands  of  missionary  sta- 
tions would  be  abandoned  in  utter  disappointment  and 
despair. 

When  our  steamship  crossed  the  180th  meridian  of 
longitude,  and  it  became  necessary  for  the  adjustment 
of  the  almanac  to  drop  out  a  day,  it  was  very  painful  to 
see  the  delight  of  many  of  the  officers  and  passengers 
that  the  lost  day  proved  to  be  a  Sunday.  On  one  of 
the  other  Lord's  Days  we  were  in  such  a  heavy  sea 
on  account  of  the  strong  northwest  gale,  that  it  was 
impossible  to  have  any  religious  services,  at  least  in  a 
manner  Ijefitting  the  stately  ceremonialism  of  the  Eng- 
lish Established  Church.  When  the  third  Sunday  came 
around  many  were  the  anxious  glances  at  the  weather 
for  sufficient  excuse  again  to  omit  the  religious  services. 
But  the  water  would  be  calm,  and  the  Avind  would 
hardly  stir ;  and  so  the  bell  had  to  be  rung,  the  congre- 
gation assembled,  the  service  read,  and,  as  requested 
by  the  captain,  I  endeavored  to  preach  of  Him  who  is 
Lord  of  the  Sabbath-day.  The  Christian  Church  can- 
not afford  to  lose  its  hold  upon  the  sacredness  of  the 
Lord's  Day.  The  laxity  of  Europe  is  a  leading  element 
in  the  weakness  of  its  Christianity.  And  the  growing 
secularization  of  the  Sabbath  in  Great  Britain  and 
America  is  proving  of  incalculable  harm  to  the  spiritual 
life  of  the  churches,  and  a  tremendous  drag  upon  their 
evangelizing  efficiency  throughout  the  world.  It  is 
hopeful  that  there  is  beoinnins:  to  be  a  o^eneral  awaken- 
ing  upon  this  subject.  The  enemy  has  been  sowing 
many  tares  while  we  have  been  asleep.  The  sentiment 
and  habits  at  sea  are  borrowed  from  the  home  land.  It 
is  a  cause  for  thanksgiving  that,  with  very  rare  excep- 
tions, the  missionary  body  entertains  neither  in  theory 
nor  practice  secularized  views  of  the  Lord's  day.     They 


86  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

believe  in  hallowing  it  themselves,  and  in  teaching  the 
converts  to  set  its  seventh  time  of  the  weei^  apart  for 
religious  devotions  and  deeds  of  mercy.  On  both 
God's  word  and  the  showing  of  results  the  old  Puri- 
tans were  nearer  right  than  Europe. 


MID-OCEAN.  87 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SANDWICH  ISLANDS,  ALASKA  AND  SIBERIA. 

nVENTY-FIYE  hundred  miles  from  either 
shore.  Ahiiost  an  Atlantic  ocean  rolling 
between  us,  whether  we  look  aft  toward 
America,  or  forward  toward  Asia.  Not  a 
steamship  has  crossed  our  track ;  not  a 
sail  of  any  kind  has  hove  in  sight.  It  is 
too  far  for  the  birds  to  fly.  Our  ship  is  much  lighter 
than  when  she  steamed  out  of  San  Francisco  harbor,  for 
a  thousand  tons  of  coal  are  gone.  Yes,  and  seven  lives 
also  are  gone  from  the  steerage  up  to  the  final  account. 
They  were  Chinamen,  and  their  bodies  are  not  buried 
at  sea.  Forty  dollars  each  settled  the  bill  with  the  ship 
doctor,  and  he  embalmed  them,  so  that  they  could  resist 
putrefaction  till  the  end  of  the  voyage,  and  be  buried 
in  their  own  native  soil.  On  account  of  this  none  of 
the  common  sailors  showed  any  signs  of  superstition 
and  uneasiness,  to  say  nothing  of  rebellion  against 
authority.  I  believe  that  in  our  day  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  deception  practised  hy  officials  in  charge  of 
ocean  transportation  upon  the  friends  of  deceased  pas- 
sengers and  of  those  who  die  far  away  from  home.  The 
old  superstitions  of  the  common  sailors,  which  have 
vanished  mostly  with  the  increase  of  intelligence,  are 
used  heartlessly,  simply  to  avoid  inconvenience  or  to  ex- 
tort bril^es.  A  few  bottles  of  carbolic  acid  in  every 
ship,  and  a  little  instruction  from  some  undertaker  to 
one  or  two  of  the  officers,  and  there  is  no  grood  reason 
why  burial  at  sea  should  not  be  a  thing  of  the  past. 
Sometimes  I  think  I  would  prefer  the  water  and  the  fish 
to  the  ground  and  the  worms.     The  Hindu  j^refers  fire; 


88  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

the  Parsee  the  talons  and  the  stomach  of  the  vulture. 
Perhaps  the  chief  thing  is  to  be  free  to  exercise  prefer- 
ences regarding  the  future  disposal  of  one's  own  body, 
or  of  those  of  deceased  friends. 

In  this  vast  solitude,  the  water  of  unknown  depths, 
the  sky  and  its  myriad  lights  seemingly  farther  off,  each 
of  the  continental  shores  too  remote  for  our  life-boats 
ever  to  reach  should  w^e  ])e  shipw^recked,  it  is  a  little 
comforting  to  think  that  to  the  southward  only  a  thou- 
sand miles  away  are  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  that  to 
the  northAvard  only  another  thousand  miles  away  is  that 
strange  network  of  the  archipelago  which  almost  unites 
Alaska  and  Siberia.  These,  then,  are  our  nearest  neigh- 
bors to-day,  and  our  missionary  thoughts  may  reach  out 
toward  them,  their  mission  history,  or  their  present  op- 
portunities and  prospects  for  evangelization.  But  the 
captain  interrupts  me  in  these  retlections,  and  our  con- 
versation takes  a  religious  turn,  upon  the  suggestion 
that  my  mind  had  just  been  pondering  over  some  of 
the  problems  of  the  mission  w^ork.  "We,  who  are 
officers,''  he  said,  "  are  seldom  led  into  religious  con- 
versations designed  for  our  l)enefit.  Something,  though 
far  too  little,  is  done  by  christians  for  the  common 
sailors,  but  the  many  thousands  of  officers  get  very 
little  real  pious  attention.  Quite  likely  nbw^  through 
you  God  is  answering  part  of  the  many  prayers  of  my 
good  christian  wife  over  in  Liverpool."  It  gave  re- 
newed interest  to  a  well-known  story,  to  learn  that  his 
wife  was  the  daughter  of  that  captain  Avho  was  "  so  near 
home,  1)ut  lost !  "  She  w  ell  remembered  it,  for  it  was 
the  event  of  her  childhood.  Her  father  had  been  absent 
some  months  upon  a  long  voyage,  but  was  reported  at 
last  close  off  the  mouth  of  the  Mersey.  The  mother 
and  child  hastened  to  provide  a  Avelcoming  feast.  All 
the  best  things  in  the  house  were  placed  upon  the  table. 
The  great  armchair  was  drawn  up  to  papa's  place. 
The  study-gown  and  slippers  were  brought  from  the 
closet.  All  the  lamps  were  lit  to  make  the  greeting 
bright  and  cordial.  A  knock  at  the  door.  He  is  there. 
No  ;  a  messenger  to  announce  tbi'  ship  h;is  run  aground, 


OCEAN    READING.  89 

been  wrecked,  and  all  on  board  have  perished.  "  So 
near  home,"  exclaimed  the  heartbroken  Avife  in  words 
which  have  echoed  around  the  world  in  christian  warn- 
ings and  exhortations  :  "  So  near  home,  but  lost !  " 

It  was  a  surprise  and  a  pleasure  to  find  some  good 
missionary  literature  in  the  little  library  belonging  on 
board.  There  was  the  full  report  of  the  late  Shanghai 
conference  neatly  bound.  I  devoured  it  all  with  eager- 
ness, and  often  left  it  down  on  the  tables  that  others 
might  be  tempted  to  read.  It  would  be  a  good  thing 
for  all  our  missionary  societies  to  send  regularly  their 
annual  reports  and  other  publications  to  the  care  of 
captains  of  ocean  steamships.  They  would  generally 
be  placed  immediately  in  the  ship's  library  along  with 
the  Bible  and  prayer-books  and  novels,  and  they  would 
be  read  more  frequently  and  thoroughly  than  in  any 
other  place  in  the  world.  One  hungry  reader  among 
our  passengers  had  been  going  over  and  over  an  old 
New  York  daily  paper,  devouring  advertisements  and 
all,  until  I  took  pity  on  him  and  handed  him  an  admir- 
able little  book,  written  by  Rev.  Dr.  Ellinwood  of  the 
American  Presbyterian  Board,  and  gathering  up  some  of 
the  missionary  impressions  he. formed  in  oriental  lands. 
The  grateful  man  read  every  word  of  it,  though  under 
other  circumstances  it  would  probably  have  been  an  im- 
possible task.  Of  such  circumstances  the  Christian 
Church  should  avail  itself.  We  open  our  reading-rooms 
Avith  their  religious  books  and  papers,  but  almost  en- 
tirely neglect  the  hundreds  of  thousands  upon  the  sea, 
who  have  much  more  time  and  readiness  to  read  Avhat 
we  have  written  alK)ut  the  salvation  of  Christ,  and  the 
work  of  making  it  known  throughout  the  Avorld.  It 
occurs  to  me  here  to  observe  also  that  Sunday  school 
libraries  everywhere  should  have  a  large  department  for 
well-selected  missionary  literature. 

An  under  officer  accosted  me,  a  few  minutes  after  the 
above-mentioned  conversation  with  the  captain,  and 
said:  "You  would  not  recognize  me,  but  a  fcAV  weeks 
ago  I  heard  you  preach  in  San  Francisco.  You  gave 
me  just  the  truth  I  needed.     It  has  done  me  great  good  ; 


90  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

and  I  want  to  thank  you."  Unlooked-for  fruit.  How 
much  of  it  the  Lord  has  growing  and  ripening  for  all 
who  try  to  serve  him  faithfully.  There  is  cheer  in  see- 
ing what  we  endeavor  to  do  accomplished.  But  there 
comes  to  the  soul  a  peculiar  charm  of  satisfaction,  when 
results  to  God's  glory  are  achieved,  through  our  poor, 
imperfect  in.^trumentality  indeed,  and  yet  to  our  perfect 
surprise.  The  heavenly  Father  s  surprises  to  his  chil- 
dren, —  how  glad  he  is  to  give  them  ;  how  glad  Ave  are 
to  receive  them.  And  to  both  what  a  special  relish  is 
added  because  of  their  element  of  surprise.  It  was  so 
in  all  our  homes  last  Christmas.  Those  great  bundles 
in  heavy  coarse  wrapping-paper,  and  tied  with  ugly 
strings,  up  on  the  shelves,  waiting  the  coming  evening 
and  the  candle-lit  tree  and  the  completion  of  all  our 
arrangements  for  Christmas  eve ;  it  would  have  been 
most  unkind  both  to  parents  and  children  for  anyone 
to  have  come  in  and  cut  those  strings  and  torn  open 
those  Avrapping-papers,  and  disclosed  ])eforehand  those 
cherished  secrets,  that  were  to  be  the  coming  glad  sur- 
prises to  our  sons  and  daughters.  Who  would  deny  to 
Heavenly  Love  like  opportunities  of  giving?  Who 
would  deprive  human  hearts  of  the  special  charm  of 
divine  surprise?  Indeed  all  our  Father's  ways  are 
best,  and  we  appreciate  it  the  more  we  understand 
them. 

Six  hundred  Cliinese  on  board  returning  from  America 
to  their  homes.  Many  of  them  speak  English,  and  I 
cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  enter  into  religious  con- 
versation v,ith  some  of  them.  But  it  was  the  most 
discouraging  missionary  Avork  I  ever  attempted.  No 
favorable  impression  at  all  was  apparent.  They  gave 
me  to  understand  that  the}^  had  been  in  America  a  long 
time,  kncAv  all  about  christians,  and  did  not  believe 
their  religion  as  good  as  their  OAvn.  ''  Christians  all 
cheat  and  oppress  Chinamen.  They  think  Chinamen 
no  better  than  pigs  ;  Avith  no  rights  in  society  or  busi- 
ness, or  government.  Our  gods  teach  us  better.  In 
our  classics  Ave  read  good  morals.  Christians  better  go 
to  our  joss-houses."     "Are  you  a  christian  joss-man,'* 


SANDWICH    ISLAm)S.  91 

inquired  one  of  them.  Eemembering  that  they  derived 
this,  quite  modern  word  to  them,  through  the  Portu- 
guese corruption  of  the  Latin  deus,  god,  I  replied, 
"  Yes,  I  trust  I  am  a  'joss-man,'  a  truly  God-like  man ; 
at  least  there  are  multitudes  of  them,  who  would  give 
you  a  very  different  impression  of  Christianity."  But 
it  was  painfully  evident  that  they  had  neglected  their 
opportunities  with  these  Chinamen  during  the  last  few 
years.  To  me  it  is  the  most  serious  part  of  this  Chinese 
question  in  America,  that  tens  of  thousands  of  these 
Mongolians  are  yearly  going  back  to  Asia's  teeming 
millions,  to  tell  them  they  know  all  about  Christianity ; 
and  that  it  teaches  men  to  be  more  proud  and  seliish 
and  tyrannical  than  Buddhism  or  Taouism  or  Confu- 
cianism. If  we  could  only  keep  them  here,  and  inter- 
cept all  their  correspondence  home,  and  finally  bury 
them  in  our  own  soil,  it  would  ])e  far  easier  work  for 
our  missionaries  in  China.  Little  beginnings  have  been 
made  to  counteract  such  harmful  impressions.  Several 
small  chapels  and  schools  have  been  opened  in  San 
Francisco,  and  at  other  points.  Quite  a  number  of 
churches  in  the  Ea^t  also  arransre  for  Chinese  classes  in 
their  Sunday  schools ;  thus  in  the  Beneficent  Congrega- 
tionalist  Church  of  Providence,  and  in  the  Trinity  Bap- 
tist Church  of  New  York  city.  Some  disheartening 
experiences  have  been  met,  but  the  majority  of  the 
reports  are  encouraging.  The  chapel  work  I  visited  in 
California  is  being  wisely  conducted,  and  is  receiving 
numerous  tokens  of  God's  signal  favor.  American 
christians  should  increase  their  la])ors  in  these  directions 
many,  many  fold,  and  that  immediately.  Delay  will 
result  in  one  of  our  greatest  embarrassments  to  the 
evangelization  of  China. 

The  Sandwich  Islands  sixty  years  ago  became  a  mis- 
sion field  under  the  direction  of  the  American  Board. 
Many  besides  Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians  have 
read  with  grateful  interest  of  that  scene  in  Boston,  when 
Messrs.  Brigham,  Thurston  and  others  first  set  sail  for 
this  central  Pacific  work.  Of  the  possibly  one  hundred 
thousand  population  of  those  islands,  not  all  indeed,  not 


92  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

even  one-half,  are  church  communicants,  and  yet  as  we 
judge  of  our  own  and  other  so-called  Christian  nations, 
so  far,  almost  a  score  of  years  now,  this  Pacific  group  has 
been  entitled  to  the  name  of  a  Protestant  Christian 
country.  Several  years  ago  the  American  Board  sig- 
nalled this  olorious  fact  ])y  erasing:  the  mission  from 
their  list,  and  transferring  all  responsibility  to  the 
Hawaiian  Evangelical  Association.  It  has  been  found 
necessary  since,  however,  to  extend  more  counsel  and 
assistance  to  the  islanders  in  the  prosecution  of  their 
home  and  foreign  work  than  was  hoped  in  the  outset  of 
this  experiment.  But  it  has  been  a  very  valuable  one 
to  the  cause  of  missions  everywhere.  God  was  m  it. 
It  takes  generations  for  a  converted  people  to  become 
strong  enough,  under  the  ordinary  operations  of  divine 
grace,  to  stand  independently.  When  a  heathen  com- 
munity is  christianized,  the  care  of  the  missionaries  is 
not  finished  ;  their  work  is  hardly  half  done.  The  new- 
born church  life  has  to  develop,  the  bones  to  toughen, 
the  sinews  to  harden,  and  the  stature  and  vigor  to  be 
gained  of  manhood  in  Christ  Jesus.  The  churches  must 
not  be  impatient  with  their  missionaries.  The  Boards 
nmst  not  be  pressed  to  unload  the  responsibilities  of 
many  years.  Both  to  conserve  the  interests  of  evange- 
lization in  the  Sandwich  Islands  themselves,  and  also  to 
make  avail  of  their  advantageous  position  as  the  head- 
quarters for  the  large  proportion  of  all  the  mission  Avork 
throughout  ^licronesia,  the  American  Board,  in  co-op- 
eration with  the  Board  of  the  Hawaiian  Evangelical 
Association,  sustains  the  North  Pacific  Institute  at 
Honolulu,  under  the  charge  of  Rev.  Dr.  C.  M.  Hyde. 
It  is  furnishing  an  educated  ministry  for  the  home 
churches,  and  qualifying  many  to  go  forth  as  mission- 
aries to  the  Gilbert,  Marshall,  Caroline,  ]\Iortlock,  and 
other  islands  of  Micronesia.  By  native  Christians  now 
the  scene  is  often  to  be  repeated  of  that  memorable 
occasion,  Avhen  from  Honolulu  in  1852  Messrs.  Snow, 
Gulick  and  Sturges,  with  their  wives,  sailed  for  the 
evangelization  of  the  larger  portion  of  the  remaining 
dark-colored  Malayo-Polynesians.     It  is  from  this  same 


ALASKA.  93 

port,  also,  that  the  missionaiy  ship,  the  "Monimg 
Star,"  under  its  christian  captain,  Bray,  goes  forth 
annually  on  its  many  thousand  miles  of  Micronesian 
mission  voyaging. 

Alaska,  the  new  possession  acquired  by  the  United 
States  from  Russia,  will  undoubtedly  form  a  very  im- 
portant element  in  the  life  of  our  world  by  the  close  of 
the  present  century.  It  is  cold,  and  yet  not  frozen 
half  the  year.  Its  main  southern  coast  is  not  farther 
south  than  St.  Petersburg,  Stockholm,  and  Christiana. 
And  its  great  peninsula,  larger  than  the  state  of 
Florida,  as  also  the  prolongation  of  its  eastern  coast 
reach  down  into  the  latitude  of  Edinburgh,  Glasgow, 
and  even  Liverpool.  Grains  can  never  grow  there,  but 
there  are  vast,  dense  forests  of  timber  for  exportation. 
The  possibilities  of  the  fur  business  are  unequalled  in 
the  world.  The  fisheries  rival  those  of  the  Newfound- 
land banks.  And  the  mining  industries  are  developing 
so  rapidly,  that  transportation  facilities  are  already  pre- 
paring for  a  great  tide  of  emigration .  Thus  far  the 
christian  churches  of  America  have  not  done  for  Alaska 
as  much  as  the  Greek  church  of  Russia  did  before  the 
transfer.  Something  was  done  even  for  the  native  In- 
dians, but  we  have  done  almost  nothing.  Xot  many 
months  ago  one  of  our  christian  women  took  it  into 
her  heart  to  go  up  there  alone  as  a  pioneer  missionary. 
And  there  she  is,  I  hear,  doing  a  good  work,  the  sole 
representative  of  American  or  any  other  Christianity, 
striving  to  lay  the  religious  foundations  of  a  not  distant 
populous  and  Avealthy  state.  She  should  not  be  suf- 
fered to  work  much  longer  alone.  Some  one  of  our 
Boards  should  assume  responsibility  there  immediately. 
Perhaps  it  should  be  considered  to  belong  to  home 
mission  v\  ork.  If  so,  I  know  of  no  field,  unoccupied 
in  all  our  western  country,  which  presents  as  strong 
claims  for  attention  at  once  as  Alaska.  Missionaries 
should  be  sent  immediately  both  to  the  new  settlers 
and  to  the  native  population.  There  is  direct  and 
regular  communication  now  up  our  western  coast. 
Since  writing  the  above  I  am  delighted  to  hear  that  two 


94  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Presbyterian  missionaries  with   their  wives  have  been 

Siberia,  the  northern  half  of  Asia,  is  not  an  utterly 
dreary  and  desolate  region.  There  are  vast  extents  of 
country,  especially  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Altai  moun- 
tains, '.vhich  have  a  considerable  population,  are  largely 
cultivated  for  barley  and  oats,  and  contain  thriving  vil- 
lages a'ld  cities.  There  are  many  hunters  for  the  much- 
prized  marten,  ermine,  and  sable  furs.  But  the  most 
interesting  part  of  Siberian  population  are  the  exiles 
and  the  descendants  of  exiles  from  liussia.  For  gener- 
ations this  vast  country  has  been  the  penal  settlement 
for  all  the  Czar's  political  offenders,  and  they  have  often 
been  from  the  most  cultured  and  noble  families.  Poland 
has  furnished  a  large  number  of  this  exile  population. 
Here,  then,  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  most  interest- 
ing people,  the  enforced  colonists  of  a  new  country, 
quite  free  in  Siberia,  —  for  Russia  trusts  to  distance 
rather  than  to  soldiers  to  keep  them  there,  —  largely 
alienated  from  the  state  Greek  religion  of  their  oppres- 
sor, open  to  sympathy,  especially  from  an  American, 
looking  to  their  future  relations  more  with  our  country 
than  with  Euroi:)e,  and  beginning  to  command  a  large 
trade  upon  the  Pacific.  With  Russian  laws  of  intoler- 
ance relaxing,  it  w^ould  seem  that  this  inviting  open  door 
of  opportunity  for  missionary  work  cannot  long  remain 
with  no  one  entering. 

There  is  very  much  in  planting  Christian  ^dissions  at 
the  right  time,  perhaps  quite  as  much  as  in  planting 
them  in  the  right  place.  Surely  the  season  has  as  much 
to  do  as  the  soil  with  vegetable  and  grain  productions. 
At  some  of  our  stations  the  w^ork'was  undertaken  too 
late  in  God's  season,  at  some  others  of  them  there  was 
precipitancy  and  immaturity,  and  as  a  consequence  alike 
the  enterprise  has  been  feeble  and  in  the  results  largely 
disappointing.  Had  not  Protestant  Christians  come  to 
our  shores  when  they  did  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the 
national  life  of  the  new  continent,  our  countr}^  to-day 
might  be  in  the  condition  of  iMexico  or  South  America. 
Luther  struck  the  first  blows  of  the  great  German  refor- 


VALUABLE    LITERATURE.  95 

mation  at  exactly  the  right  time.  Most  opportune  was 
the  establishment  of  the  Serampore  mission.  So  with 
the  London  mission  in  Madaoascar,  the  American  Pres- 
byterians  in  Beirut,  the  English  Church  Mission  Society 
in  Tinnevelly,  the  jMethodists  in  Oude  and  Rohilkhund, 
theWesleyans  in  Fiji,  the  Dutch  in  Celebes,  the  Scotch 
Free  Church  in  CaLd^ta,  ixiid  with  many  others  we 
might  mention.  On  the  other  hand  efforts  have  been 
made  for  1,10 ilom  e^'ailgcIizatioll,  '.vhicu  were  pre- 
mature, the  missionaries  being  compelled  to  fall  back  for 
results  upon  ]a])ors  among  the  nominal  adherents  to  the 
ancient  oriental  Christian  Churches.  Some  stations  have 
been  occupied  precipitately  in  China  by  the  Inland  ]Mis- 
sion.  An  opportunity,  which  is  God's  call,  has  more 
elements  than  access  for  travel  and  safety  for  residence. 
"The  English,  I  suppose,  have  some  foreign  mission- 
ary societies,  just  as  we  Americans  have,  but  there  are 
none  others  in  Protestant  countries,  are  there?"  Nev- 
ertheless, my  questioning  fellow-passenger  could  have 
told  me  all  about  the  political  situation  at  the  insignif- 
icant Albanian  villas^e  of  Dulciijno,  or  could  have  oiven 
a  volume  of  information  concernino^  the  s^reat  club- 
houses  upon  Pall  Mall,  or  could  have  discoursed  the 
whole  afternoon  upon  the  habits  and  customs  of  the 
leading  European  capitals.  But  with  regard  to,  at 
least,  two-thirds  of  ail  that  the  Christian  Church  is 
doing  for  the  evangelization  of  the  world,  it  was  with 
him,  in  part,  mere  supposition,  and  the  other  part  a 
total  blank.  It  is  strange  that  so  many  intelligent 
christian  people  know  so  little  concerning  the  Protestant 
missionary  enterprises  of  to-day.  They  cannot  claim 
that  there  are  no  avenues  of  information  open  to  them. 
There  is  no  literature  fuller  and  richer  than  the  mission- 
ary literature  of  our  age.  Xor  is  it  a  heavy  mass  of 
unattractive  dates  and  statistics.  It  is  leavened  all 
through  with  the  most  thrilling  and  instructive  incidents 
of  human  life.  It  is  full  of  history,  geography,  philol- 
ogy, ethnology,  zoology,  botany,  mineralogy,  painting 
and  sculpture,  architecture  and  civil  engineering,  music 
and  fashion,  political  economy  and  international   law. 


96  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Large  portions  of  the  missionary  literature  of  the  Church 
is  stranger  than  romance ;  it  is  divine  poetry,  equalled 
only  by  that  within  the  sacred  volume ;  nay,  it  is 
supreme  reality,  lifting  the  reader  above  the  low  levels 
of  secular  affairs,  where  things  are  so  often  not  what 
they  seem,  into  the  clear  light  of  perfect  observation. 
Missionary  literature  is  commanding  to-day  the  services 
of  many  of  the  most  accomplished  authors,  the  most 
successful  editors,  the  most  skilful  artists,  and  the 
most  enterprising  publishers.  The  most  attractive 
geographical  work  we  have  ever  seen  is  that  new  and 
sixth  edition  of  the  Atlas j  lately  published  hy  the  Eng- 
lish Church  Missionary  Society.  The  fourteenth  edition 
of  the  Jubilee  Year  Report  of  the  Free  Church  of  Scot- 
land upon  its  fifty  years  of  foreign  missions,  the  Amer- 
ican Presbyterian  and  Baptist  magazines,  the  Easter 
cards  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  the  last  annual  report 
of  the  American  Board,  the  volume  of  papers  presented 
at  the  Mildmay  conference,  the  religious  outlook  in 
Mexico  by  a  late  Methodist  bishop,  and  many  other 
contributions  to  our  missionary  literature  we  might 
mention,  all  the  way  from  leaflets  to  volumes,  showing 
that  in  this  department  the  Church  is  employing 
many  minds  of  the  highest  talent  and  culture,  taste 
and  adaptability.  The  day  has  gone  by  when  any 
christians  can  excuse  themselves  for  deficiency  of  mis- 
sionary information  because  of  dulness  and  heaviness 
and  inaccessibility  of  the  literature  of  missions.  The 
difficulty  lies  deeper  doAvn.  Multitudes  of  professed 
christians  do  not  want  to  know.  To  their  worldly 
minds  and  cold,  indifferent  hearts,  their  ignorance  is 
bliss,  and  they  know  it  is  folly  to  become  wise,  until 
they  have  experienced  a  reconversion. 

The  English  State  Church,  through  its  Propagation, 
Church  Mission,  University  and  other  smaller  societies, 
raises  annually  not  far  from  two  million  five  hundred 
thousand  dollars  for  foreio^n  evanofelization.  The  va- 
rious  nonconformist  societies  of  Enofland  contribute 
yearly  about  two  millions  of  dollars  to  mission  work  in 
other  lands.     The  Established  Church  of  Scotland  raises 


BRITISH    AND    EUROPEAN    SOCIETIES.  97 

one  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  ;  the  Free 
Church  nearly  twice  as  much  ;  and  the  United  Presby- 
terians are  not  far  behind  this  latter  contribution  to 
foreign  missions.  The  Scotch  and  Irish  Presbyterians 
together  roll  up  their  annual  contribution  to  over  seven 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  It  would  thus  seem  that 
the  established  Churches  of  Great  Britain  raise  about 
the  same  amount  as  the  aggregate  of  all  the  non-con- 
formist bodies,  including  the  Free  and  United  Presby- 
terians of  Scotland,  thfe  London  (Independent  or  Con- 
gregational), the  Wesleyan,  the  Baptist,  the  English 
and  the  Irish  Presbyterian,  the  Primitive  Methodist,  the 
United  ^Methodist,  the  China  Inland  and  other  smaller 
missionary  associations.  But  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  unestablished  Churches  have  not  the  help  of  vast 
endowments  and  of  enormous  stipends  from  the  public 
treasury  for  meeting  most  of  their  current  expenses  at 
home.  And  when  it  is  taken  into  account  also,  that  the 
nonconformist  Churches  include  in  their  members  a 
much  lower  average  of  financial  resource,  their  annual 
contribution  of  one-half  of  the  five  millions  of  dollars  of 
foreign  mission  money  indicates  among  them  a  more 
general  and  deeply-felt  interest  in  the  cause  of  world 
evangelization. 

There  are  also  missionary  societies  upon  the  continent 
of  Europe,  whose  work,  though  lacking  in  a  measure 
the  spirit  and  success  of  that  under  Anglo-Saxon  leader- 
ship, is  of  vast  consequence  to  the  cause.  Still,  like 
our  fellow-passenger  on  the  steamship,  there  are  multi- 
tudes of  American  christians,  who,  with  all  their  boasted 
intellio^ence  and  illimitable  rans^e  of  information,  have 
never  heard  of  them.  Holland  has  nine  missionary 
societies,  besides  an  auxiliary  each  of  the  Moravian  and 
Rhenish  agencies.  The  three  leading  societies  are  the 
Neederlandsch  Zendeling  Genootschap  of  Rotterdam 
with  about  twenty  missionaries  and  an  income  of  fifty 
thousand  dollars  ;  the  Utrechtsche  with  twelve  to  fifteen 
missionaries  and  forty  thousand  dollars  ;  and  the  Need- 
erlandsch  Zendini^svereeniocinof  of  Rotterdam  w^ith  some 
ten  missionaries  and  twenty  thousand  dollars  of  annual 


98  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

contribution.  Altos^ether  Holland  sends  to  the  foreififn 
field  about  sixty  missionaries,  and  sustains  them  at  a 
yearly  cost  of  not  far  from  two  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars. The  two  Protestant  missionary  societies  of  France 
raise  not  far  from  sixty  thousand  dollars  annually. 

In  Germany  there  are  five  strictly  Lutheran  mission- 
ary societies,  the  Berlin  South  African,  the  Gossner, 
the  Leipzig,  the  Hermannsburg,  and  that  of  the  Breth- 
ren in  Schleswiof-Holstein.  There  are  also  five  reo'ular 
Lutheran  foreign  missions  in  the  Jands  north  of  Ger- 
many, one  in  Denmark,  one  in  Finland,  two  in  Sweden, 
and  a  considerably  leading  one  in  Norway.  All  these 
together  support  a  few  over  two  hundred  ordained 
missionaries  at  an  annual  cost  of  three  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  The  other  and  more  evangelical 
German  missionary  societies  are  the  Moravian,  the 
Basil,  the  Barmen,  and  the  Bremen,  all  belonging  to 
the  United  Evangelic  Church,  which  professes  to  occupy 
a  middle  o^round  between  the  hiofh  churchism  of  the 
strict  Lutherans  and  the  low  churchism  of  the  various 
reformed  bodies  of  Protestantism.  These  United  Evan- 
gelical societies  sustain  three  hundred  and  fifty  ordained 
missionaries.  The  average  contributions  of  all  Prot- 
estant Germany  for  foreign  missions  are  eight  hundred 
thousand  dollars  per  annum.  The  Protestants  of  Swit- 
zerland contribute  in  the  same  proportion,  while  in 
Norway  the  average  is  25  per  cent  better.  Of  all 
Germany,  in  the  city  of  Bremen  there  seems  to  be  the 
most  practical  interest  in  world  evangelization. 

Wonderful,  thus,  has  been  the  growth  of  the  mission- 
ary spirit  within  the  present  century.  At  its  begin- 
ning there  were  only  seven  Protestant  societies.  Of 
these,  four,  the  Church  Mission,  the  London,  the  Eng- 
lish Baptist,  and  the  Dutch  society  at  Rotterdam,  had 
but  just  commenced  their  existence.  Three  only  had 
been  at  work  for  most  of  the  last  century,  the  Mora- 
vian, the  Propagation  Society  of  Great  Britain,  and  the 
Halle-Danish.  The  former  led  in  Protestant  work 
among  the  Jews  and  heathen,  advancing  as  far  as 
India.      The   Propagation    Society    confined    its  work 


FORCES    AND    FIELD.  99 

mostly  to  English  colonists.  To  Frederick  TV.  of 
Denmark  belongs  the  honor  of  inaugurating  the  modern 
missionary  enterprise  by  sending  out  the  first  Protestant 
missionaries  to  the  heathen  in  1706.  It  was  in  that 
year  that  under  his  royal  sanction  Ziegenbalg  and 
Plutscho  sailed  for  India.  But  only  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  years  have  passed  since  those  first  two  mod- 
ern missionaries  ;  or  only  eighty-one  years  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  present  century,  and  we  have  in  Europe 
and  America  150  foreign  Protestant  missionary  socie- 
ties ;  71  of  them  in  Great  Britain,  53  in  America,  9  in 
Germany,  9  in  Holland,  5  in  Scandinavia,  Denmark, 
and  Finland  too:ether,  2  in  France,  and  1  in  Canton  de 
Vaud.  Many  of  these  societies  have  already  become 
the  parents  and  the  grandparents  of  missionary  organ- 
izations in  other  parts  of  the  world.  Eighty-one  years 
ago  there  were  but  70  missionaries,  now  there  are  over 
2,500  ordained  Europeans  and  Americans,  from  7,000 
to  8,000  ordained  native  preachers,  and  a  great  multi- 
tude in  addition  of  associated  laborers,  being  wives  of 
missionaries,  single  women  missionaries,  native  assist- 
ants, teachers,  evangelists,  and  of  various  other  designa- 
tions, making  a  force  of  4,871  missionaries,  and  28,574 
native  helpers.  For  the  support  of  this  grand  foreign 
missionary  agency  of  the  Protestant  Christian  Church, 
the  expense  has  increased  from  $250,000  to  over  $7,- 
500,000  annually.  This  is  about  five  times  as  much 
as  is  raised  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  for  the  support  of  its  great  mission 
Propaganda. 

For  this  mighty  working  force  of  Protestant  missions 
"  the  field  is  the  world."  Our  Saviour's  parting  com- 
mand was  :  "  Go  ye  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations." 
''Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the  Gospel  to 
every  creature."  The  responsibility  is  nothing  short  of 
world-wide  evangelization.  "  This  Gospel  of  the  King- 
dom shall  be  preached  in  all  the  world  as  a  witness  unto 
all  nations."  We  are  to  reckon  all  men  as  lost  sinners, 
because,  "  There  is  no  difference ;  for  all  have  sinned." 
But  we  carry  the  glorious  tidings  of  an  all-sufficient 


100 


CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 


salvation.  "  He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,  and 
not  for  ours  only,  but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole 
world."  And  now  God  "  commandeth  men  everywhere 
to  repent."  Of  this  field  of  the  world  I  will  give  here 
what  appears  one  of  the  most  reliable  of  many  esti- 
mates of  the  distribution  of  population.  The  term 
"  Pagans  "  is  used  as  distinct  from  Hindus,  Buddhists, 
etc.,  and  including  only  those  who  have  no  religious 
books,  as  principally  the  African  fetish  worshippers. 


In  America, 

In  Aus- 

In Europe. 

In  Asia. 

In   Africa. 

North  and 
South. 

tralia  and 
Polynesia. 

Total. 

Jews     .... 

5,437,000 

1,005,000 

938,000 

137,000 

10,000 

7,527,000 

Mahometans     . 

5,974,000 

112,739,000 

50,416,000 

- 

- 

169,129,000 

Hindus,  includ- 

ing aboriginal 

races  .... 

176,312,000 

275,000 

86,000 

- 

176,673,000 

Buddhists, Taou- 

ists.Confucian- 

ists,     Shintoos 

and  Jains    .     . 

502,363,000 

2,000 

152,000 

30,C00 

502,547,000 

Religions     not 

specified,    and 

miscellaneous 

sects    .... 

211,000 

8,304,000 

- 

166,000 

295,000 

8,976,000 

Pagans     .    .    . 

258,000 

12,029,000 

144,729,000 

9,244,000 

2,393,000 

168,653,000 

Total     (non- 

Christian)  . 

11,880,000 

812,752,000 

196,.360,000 

9,785,000 

2,728,000 

1,033,505,000 

Roman    Catho- 

lics  

150,223,000 

1,429,000 

669,000 

37,540,000 

454,000 

190,315,000 

Protestants  .    . 

75,124,000 

430,000 

740,000 

37,380,000 

1,544,000 

115,218,000 

Greek  Church  . 

71,588,000 

6,370,000 

- 

- 

77,958,000 

Armenians, 

Copts,Abyssin- 

iaus,  etc.     .    . 

255,000 

2,684,000 

1,650,000 

- 

- 

4,589,000 

Other     Chris- 

tians   not  spe- 

cified .... 

110,000 

1,013,000 

501,000 

815,000 

22,600 

2,461,600 

Total       of 

Christians, 

297,300,000 

11,926,000 

3,560,000 

75,735,000 

2,020,600 

390,541,600 

Grand  Total, 

309,180,000 

824,678,000 

199,920,000 

85,520,000 

4,748,600 

1,424,046,600 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  calculations  that  sixty  per 
cent,  of  the  population  of  our  Avorld  are  heathen,  twelve 
per  cent.  Mahometan,  twenty-seven  and  a  half  per  cent. 
Christian ;  that  only  two-sevenths  of  the  Christians  are 
Protestants,  or  only  one-twelfth  of  the  human  race. 

In  this  great  world  field,  God  has  so  blessed  the  labors 
of  Protestant  missionaries  during  the  present  century, 
that    the    number    of    communicants    or   full    church 


CONQUESTS.  101 

members  has  increased  from  12,000  to  472,121,  and 
the  number  of  heathen  converts  or  adherents  brought 
under  the  care  of  our  missionaries  has  multiplied 
from  50,000  to  about  2,000,000.  Of  these  latter 
Professor  Christlieb  reckons :  310,000  are  in  the 
West  Indies;  400,000  to  500,000  in  India  and 
Further  India;  40,000  to  50,000  in  West  Africa; 
180,000  in  South  Africa;  over  240,000  in  Mada- 
gascar; 90,000  in  the  Indian  Archipelago;  45,000 
to  50,000  in  China;  over  300,000  in  the  South  Sea 
Islands.  Meanwhile  Protestant  mission  schools  have 
increased  from  70  in  number  to  over  12,000  with  393,- 
180  scholars.  Within  the  same  time  Bible  work  has 
advanced  from  50  translations  and  a  circulation  of 
5,000,000  to  308  translations  in  whole  or  in  part, 
and  a  circulation  of  148,000,000  of  copies. 

To-morrow  we  expect  to  sight  land,  the  strange,  far- 
away land  of  the  Empire  of  the  Rising  Sun.  Our 
voyage  has  been  a  delightful  one,  with  only  two  mod- 
erate gales,  and  with  full  enough  of  varied  life  on  board 
to  make  the  past  three  weeks  tar  from  monotonous  and 
Avearisome.  Five  thousand  miles  from  America's  west- 
ern shore  I  Eight  thousand  miles  from  New  York  !  Yet 
our  journeyings  are  but  begun,  when  we  think  of  the 
42,000  remaining  miles  up  and  down,  and  liack  and 
forth,  and  round  and  round  oceans  and  continents, 
and  seas  and  islands,  and  rivers  and  mountains.  Of 
this  voyage  one  more  thing  remains  to  be  done.  I  have 
put  it  oft'  from  day  to  day  until  now.  I  must  seize  the 
opportunity  of  accompanying  the  captain  upon  his  daily 
tour  of  inspection  below  in  the  steerage  among  the  six 
hundred  Chinese  and  Japanese  heathen.  It  was  a  great 
change  from  our  luxurious  cabin  accommodations  to 
those  closely  huddled  bunks,  and  narrow  passage-ways, 
and  at  the  best  uncleanly  and  repulsive  surroundings. 
But  I  am  glad  I  went  with  the  captain.  And  now,  O, 
thou  great  Captain  of  man's  salvation,  conduct  us  ^afely 
down  from  the  luxurious  accommodations  of  American 
Christianity  into  the  steerage  of  Tlw  Zion's  ship,  where 
amid  every  physical  and  spiritual  repulsion  foreign  mis- 
sions are  at  work  for  souls. 


102  CHBISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  Vn. 

JAPAN  AND  THE  JAPANESE. 

UR  first  sight  of  the  shores  and  buildings 
and  people  of  Japan  was  not  full  of  sur- 
prise, as  for  time  immemorial  it  has  been 
the  custom  of  travellers  to  affirm  of  new 
and  far-oif  lands  they  have  visited.  Objects 
had  very  much  the  appearance  we  expected 
they  would  have,  yet  they  were  none  the  less  interest- 
ing. Novelty  was  everywhere.  The  days  were  too 
short,  and  the  weeks  and  months  were  gone  before  we 
half  realized  it.  Yet  as  to  our  constant  panorama  of 
sight-seeing,  it  did  prove  that  we  had  quite  fully  real- 
ized what  we  were  coming  to  see.  The  objects  were 
only  familiar  descriptions  and  pictures  transformed  into 
life.  Writers  and  photographers  have  done  their  work 
well,  and  a  few  dollars  judiciously  invested  at  book- 
stores and  photograph  rooms,  Avill  give  one  a  very  full 
and  accurate  idea  of  Japan  and  of  the  eTapanese.  The 
fact  is  the  great  world  has  become  simply  a  neighbor- 
hood in  our  day.  Distant  nations  are  only  over  the 
fence,  or  across  the  way,  or  at  the  most  in  the  other 
district  of  our  town.  Steamships  and  electric  cables, 
literature  and  art,  commerce  and  immigration,  they  are 
annihilating  distances,  relegating  foreign  missions  into 
history,  and  making  all  world  evangelization  home  mis- 
sion work.  We  have  really  no  longer  to  argue  the 
question  of  foreign  versus  home  missions.  The  world 
has  turned  around  a  few  times,  and  lo,  in  the  progress 
of  our  race,  national  and  ethnological  and  geographical 
lines  disappear,  and  the  human  family  is  altogether 
substituting  arbitration  for  war,  holding  universal  exhi- 


CmNA^ABDJC 


Po/udaHoi 
A.      -^o.ofjfissi 


fMissiojrs. 


na  ^00.000,000. 
w  357. 

18.968. 


I. 


Protestant  Missions, 

JSrUish B. 

Ji?ner6(uzn A. 

Germun. G. 

TretUz/Ports • 

Mar^uri/ and M^Carth^ Tours  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»*»» 

ETuilish/  M   I      I      I      I      I      I  Miles 

^         5o     O   So  100  ISO  200  zso 


20 


^5' 


130' 


135 


TOKIO.  103 

bitions,  keeping  up  a  constant  interchange  of  neighborly 
hospitalities,  impatient  for  the  use  of  the  telephone 
beneath  the  ocean's  waves,  and  bringing  to  our  very 
doors  the  evangelization  of  all  mankind. 

If  we  include  the  Loochoo,  Majico  and  Sima  Islands, 
stretching  down  close  to  Formosa,  as  a  part  of  the 
Mikado's  empire,  Japan  is  a  long  cluster  of  islands, 
mostly  four,  reaching  from  al)out  45"^  latitude  North, 
in  a  southwesterly  direction  to  the  24th  parallel.  The 
census  taken  in  September,  1878,  gives  the  population 
of  the  country  as  34,338,404,  and  of  Tokio,  the  capital, 
as  1,036,771.  Yezo,  the  most  northerly  of  the  four 
principal  islands,  is  somewhat  larger  than  Ireland,  but 
contains  a  very  sparse  population,  not  probably  to  ex- 
ceed 200,000.  Of  these  there  are  about  30,000  Ainos, 
the  representatives  of  the  aboriginal  race  of  Japan,  sub- 
jugated by  the  first  Mikados.  They  are  a  very  distinct 
people,  both  in  features  and  language,  not  only  from  the 
Japanese,  but  also  from  the  Coreans,  Chinese,  Mongols, 
Manchus,  and  Tibetans.  It  is  surmised  that  they  are  of 
Aryan  stock,  and  somewhat  closely  related  to  the  Sla- 
vonic family.  Their  language  has  some  resemblance  to 
the  Esquimaux.  Matsumai,  with  some  50,000  popula- 
tion is  the  metropolis  of  Yezo,  but  Hakodati,  with  6,000, 
on  the  shore  of  a  beautiful  bay,  is  the  only  treaty  port 
which  has  been  opened  to  foreigners.  Directly  across 
the  Tsugaru  Strait  from  Matsumai  is  the  principal  island 
of  the  empire,  generally  known  to  foreigners  as  Nippon. 
This  name,  however,  with  or  without  the  prefix  Dai, 
great,  is  used  by  the  Japanese  themselves  generally  to 
designate  the  whole  empire,  even  as  the  English  use 
Britain  or  Great  Britain.  The  capital,  Tokio,  is  sit- 
uated at  the  head  of  the  Yedo  bay,  covers  thirty-six 
square  miles,  is  diversified  and  ornamented  by  a  num- 
ber of  grandly  wooded  and  temple-covered  hills,  and 
contains  in  its  heart  a  quarter,  perhaps,  of  the  city, 
walled  off  for  the  exclusive  use  of  royalty,  and  called 
the  Shiro,  or  "The  Castle."  The  river  Ogawa  flows 
through  the  city,  over  which  is  the  celebrated  bridge  of 
Japan,  from  which  all  distances  throughout  the  empire 


1 04  CHRISTIAN   MIS  SIGNS . 

are  reckoned.  The  main  street  of  Tokio  crosses  this 
bridge,  and  is  twelve  miles  in  length.  Much  ground  is 
occupied  in  different  parts  of  the  city  by  the  great 
houses,  barrack-looking  structures,  where  long  dwelt 
the  overthrown  Daimiyos,  surrounded  by  their  multi- 
tudinous retainers,  the  two-sworded  Samurai.  The 
Mikado  and  his  wife  occupy  a  quite  Europeanized 
palace  of  moderate  pretensions  toward  the  Western 
suburb. 

Almost  due  West  from  Tokio  two  hundred  miles  is 
Kiyoto,  a  city  of  374,496  population,  and  which  is  to 
Japan  what  Moscow  is  to  Russia,  and  what  Rome  is  to 
Italy.  It  has  one  thousand  Buddhist  temples,  and  was 
the  residence  of  the  Mikados  from  A.  D.  794  to  1868. 
Though  according  to  the  census  of  1872  Kiyoto  was  the 
second  city  of  the  empire,  I  am  quite  confident  that 
Osaka,  thirty-three  miles  distant,  and  nearer  the  waters 
of  the  inland  sea,  has  by  this  time  far  outstripped  the 
sacred  capital  in  population.  It  does  not  appear  much 
behind  Tokio,  with  its  million  and  more.  The  river 
Ajikawa  flows  through  Osaka,  curiously  divided  at  that 
point  into  a  number  of  branches,  which  with  the  net- 
work of  intersecting  canals  and  the  numerous  pictu- 
resque bridges  have  suggested  to  many  the  appropriate 
title  of  the  Venice  of  the  East.  Osaka  is  for  inland 
native  business  the  commercial  capital  of  the  empire. 
There  is  the  Wall  Street  of  Japan,  with  its  crowds  of 
bulls  and  bears.  The  best  informed  people  have  as- 
sured me  that  seven-tenths  of  the  wealth  of  the  nation 
is  controlled  in  Osaka.  There  is  the  great  mint,  second 
only  to  the  American  at  Philadelphia,  and  which  has 
already  coined,  within  a  dozen  years,  nearly  one  hun- 
dred millions  of  dollars.  Here,  too,  is  a  celebrated 
castle,  in  whose  massive  walls  I  saw  great  stones,  sur- 
passed only  in  all  the  world  by  the  mammoth  blocks  in 
the  gigantic  masonry  at  Baalbec,  Syria.  The  districts 
in  the  vicinity,  reaching  up  along  both  the  eastern  and 
western  shores  of  Lake  Biwa,  are  densely  populated, 
making  it  very  easy  for  the  traveller  at  this  point  to 
believe  the  general  census  statistics. 


JAPAN   HISTORY.  105 

The  fourth  city  of  the  empire  is  Nagoya,  upon  a  large 
central  eastern  bay,  as  also  upon  the  celebrated  To- 
kaido,  or  imperial  highway,  joining  the  political  and 
ecclesiastical  capitals.  Niigata  is  the  only  open  port 
upon  the  Avest  coast  of  the  main  island.  It  is  the 
capital  of  the  rich  province  of  Echigo,  and  is  the  port 
for  the  populous  island  of  Sado,  a  tew  miles  off  the 
shore.  The  missionary  of  the  English  Church  Mission 
Society  has  here  a  parish  of  fifteen  hundred  thousand 
souls.  The  island  of  Kiushiu,  on  which  is  situated  the 
well-known  treaty  port  of  Nagasaki,  ranks  next  to 
Nippon.  Here  is  the  province  of  Satsuma,  at  whose 
capital  Kagoshima,  then  Cangoxima,  the  famous  Jesuit 
missionary  Francis  Xavier  landed  in  1549.  This  prov- 
ince was  the  centre  of  the  late  rebellion,  Avhich  required 
for  its  overthrow  the  lives  of  sixty  thousand  of  the 
Mikado's  troops  and  an  immense  addition  to  the  national 
debt.  Nearer  to  Nagasaki  is  Shimabara,  where  thirty 
thousand  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  converts  were  mas- 
sacred in  1637,  and  had  over  their  common  grave 
inscribed  by  their  revengeful  fellow-countrymen,  — 
"  So  long  as  the  sun  shall  warm  the  earth,  let  no  Chris- 
tian be  so  bold  as  to  come  to  Japan."  The  fourth  prin- 
cipal island  is  Shikoku. 

The  natural  division  of  Japan  history  is  into  three 
periods.  The  first  period  is  from  the  earliest  times  to 
the  middle  of  our  own  twelfth  century.  The  date  is 
given  as  660  B.  C,  when  the  first  Mikado,  or  emperor, 
named  Jimmu,  like  his  cotemporary,  the  great  Assyrian 
king  Assurbanipal,  claiming  to  be  the  son  of  a  goddess, 
came  down  in  a  boat  from  the  skies,  and  with  his  re- 
tainers conquered  the  country  from  the  Ainos.  Among 
the  mythical  there  is  probably  here  a  substance  for 
history.  The  Japanese  claim  that  their  royal  succession 
was  unbroken  durino^  all  these  ei2:hteen  centuries,  amid 
the  ambitions  of  regents,  the  jealousies  of  the  Dai- 
miyos,  and  the  warlike  spirit  of  the  Samurai.  A  great 
change  in  the  government,  however,  occurred  about 
A.  D.  1143,  when  one  of  the  Daimiyos  of  the  royal 
family,  having  been  crushing  for  his  master"  some  of  the 


106  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

other  nobles,  turned  upon  the  imperial  power  with  his 
victorious  troops,  making  himself  the  political  king, 
and  leaving  to  the  Mikado  only  ecclesiastical  authority. 
This  Yoritomo  assumed  the  title  of  Shogun,  which  his 
successors  carried  for  more  than  seven  centuries.  The 
Shogun  at  first  resided  at  Kamakura,  near  by  where  is 
at  present  the  remarkable  statue  of  Dai  Butsu  or  Great 
Buddha ;  afterwards  he  removed  to  Yedo,  the  present 
Tokio,  while  all  the  time  the  Mikados  continued  to  re- 
side in  Tokio,  invisible  to  mortal  eyes  and  revered  as  a 
god.  It  was  during  this  period  that  Taiko  Sama,  w4io 
matured  the  system  of  the  Shogiinate,  and  his  successor 
Gongen  Sama,  1)y  the  most  dreadful  persecutions  and 
butcheries  extinguished  Roman  Catholicism  from  the 
land.  It  w^as  practically  so  for  political  purposes,  but 
the  Catholic  Bishop  of  Osaka  told  me  that  he  had  dis- 
covered nearly  two  thousand  professed  christians, 
mostly  in  the  vicinity  of  Nagasaki,  avIio  date  back  their 
ancestry  and  religion  to  the  remnant  of  converts  of 
Francis  Xavier,  saved  from  the  banishment  edict  of 
June,  1587,  and  the  massacre  of  1637. 

Roman  Catholic  political  intrigue  is  to  blame  for  the 
exclusive  policy  which  Japan  maintained  for  more  than 
two  centuries.  Previously  the  Japanese  had  shown 
themselves  quite  willing  that  foreigners  should  not  only 
trade  with  them,  but  even  take  up  their  residence  per- 
manently within  their  borders.  They  had  sent  an 
embassy  of  three  princes  to  Pope  Gregory  XIII.  con- 
veying letters  and  costly  gifts.  But,  when  they  learned 
that  Rome  meant  more  than  spiritual  influence,  and  w^as 
interfering  with  their  political  affairs,  the}^  resolved  to 
strangle  the  giant  revolution  in  its  infancy,  and  they 
did.  Their  cruelties  were  horrible.  The  butchered 
thousands  no  doubt  largely  deserve  a  place  in  the  glo- 
rious martyrology  of  the  Christian  Universal  Church,  yet 
there  was  much  to  justify  the  Japanese  government 
then  and  in  their  sul:>sequent  policy.  Their  exclusion 
was  maintained  without  any  exception,  save  in  the  case 
of  a  few  Dutch  merchants  strictly  confined  to  the  small 
island  of  Deshima  in  the  harbor  of  Nafifasaki,  until  1854, 


THE    LATE    REVOLUTION.  107 

which  marks  the  beginning  of  the  third  period  of  Japan 
history,  when  Commodore  Perry  of  the  United  States 
navy  forced  a  treaty  with  the  Japanese,  breaking 
for  the  first  time  these  national  barriers  of  absolute 
exclusion.  European  nations  followed  up  the  advan- 
tage, and  in  1858  Lord  Elgin  of  Great  Britain  secured 
the  opening  of  six  ports  for  trade  with  consular  facili- 
ties, as  also  the  right  of  legation  at  the  capital. 

The  Shogun  was  represented  by  the  negotiating  Dai- 
miyos  to  the  Americans  and  Europeans  as  the  Tycoon, 
or  more  correctly  Taikun.  It  was  a  coined  word,  with 
which  the  Japanese  were  not  at  all  familiar,  from  two 
Chinese  words,  meaning  great  and  lord.  The  game  was 
double.  The  nobles  had  two  purposes  in  view.  For 
a  long  time  there  had  been  much  dissatisfaction  with 
the  Shogunate,  and  many  of  the  Daimiyos  desired  to 
use  the  foreigners  to  compromise  the  Shogun,  to 
weaken  his  powers  and  ultimately  overthrow  him  in  the 
interest  of  temporal  power  to  the  ]\Iikado.  On  the 
other  hand  they  were  strongly  opposed  to  the  treaties, 
thoroughly  believed  in  a  strictly  excluding  policy,  and 
fondly  hoped  that  avoiding  the  Shogiin's  name  would 
secure  an  available  flaw  in  the  treaties  whenever  they 
should  be  in  a  situation  to  successfully  contest  them. 
The  Shogun  was  murdered,  and  his  successor  pressed 
to  abdication.  The  assassination  of  several  foreigners, 
including  the  secretary  of  the  United  States  legation, 
brought  stern  military  influence  to  bear  from  without, 
and  the  Japanese  were  compelled  to  recognize  that,  in 
this  commercial  ao^e  of  universal  intercourse,  foreigrners 
had  rights  upon  their  coasts  and  within  their  ports  at 
least,  and  that  the  foreigners  were  bound  to  enforce 
them.  The  pressure  showed  them  their  weakness,  and 
the  necessity  of  consolidated  national  power.  Therefore 
in  1868  the  Shogun  abdicated ;  the  Daimiyos  surren- 
dered their  feudal  rights ;  and  the  Mikado  became 
again  the  real  Emperor.  Perhaps  half  of  the  probably 
two  hundred  million  dollars'  debt,  accumulated  against 
the  Japanese  treasury  during  the  last  twelve  years,  has 
been  in  settlement  by  way  of  necessarily  liberal  pensions 


108  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

with  many  of  these  Daimiyos,  but  particularly  with  the 
eighty  thousand  at  least  of  the  Samurai  who  were  com- 
pelled to  lay  aside  their  swords  and  give  place  to  a 
regularly  disciplined  army,  modelled  after  European 
patterns. 

Both  the  literature  and  the  religion  of  the  Japanese 
are  complicated.  They  have  borrowed  an  immense 
number  of  the  Chinese  symbolic  signs  to  represent  the 
words  of  their  own  language ;  and  then  they  have  in- 
vented their  own  alphabet  of  phonetic  symbols,  com- 
prising forty-seven  letters.  So  they  have  two  Avritten 
languages ;  the  one  hieroglyphic,  for  the  educated 
classes,  and  the  other  made  up  of  very  simple  letters 
and  simple  spelling,  which  only  the  very  common 
people  will  condescend  to  notice.  The  patriotic  relig- 
ion of  the  people  is  Shintooism.  It  is  the  oldest 
religion  of  Japan,  Buddhism  not  having  been  introduced 
into  the  country  until  the  fifth  century  of  the  Christian 
era,  or  more  than  a  thousand  years  after  the  Mikado's 
religio-political  dynasty  began.  The  entrance  of  the 
new  religion  was  probably  from  China  by  way  of  Corea. 
Shintooism  has  no  idols  of  stone  or  wood,  but  deifies 
the  ruling  dynasty  with  its  military  and  civil  heroes, 
and  proffers  adoration  to  the  sun  as  the  goddess  from 
whom  their  Mikado  descended.  As  has  been  said,  — 
"  Shintooism,  indeed,  like  the  corrupt  worship  of  other 
ancient  Oriental  nations,  may  probably  be  traced  back, 
in  its  ultimate  analysis,  to  two  roots  or  principles  — 
the  deification  of  ancestors  or  national  leaders,  and  ven- 
eration of  the  powers  of  nature."  I  was  very  forcibly 
impressed,  sul)sequently,  upon  a  visit  to  the  imperial 
altar  of  heaven  at  Peking,  China,  with  the  similarity  of 
the  principles  involved  to  those  of  Shintooism.  The 
Mikado  himself  worships  also  in  Buddhist  temples. 
The  hold  of  Buddhism  upon  so  large  a  population  of 
the  Japanese  is  more  difficult  to  account  for  than  the 
similar  phenomenon  in  countries  previously  afflicted 
with  Hinduism.  But  the  multitudes  probably  feel  that 
even  its  dreary  light  upon  the  future  is  better  than 
nothing.     When  the  Japanese  are  patriotically  or  polit- 


UNSETTLING   OF   THE    OLD   FAITHS.  109 

ically  religious  they  go  to  the  Shintoo  temples.  Their 
Scholasticism  expends  itself  in  devout  contemplation  of 
the  Confucian  classics  as  the  foreign  oracles  of  the  pro- 
foundest  wisdom.  And  their  longings  to  know  some- 
thing of  the  beyond  induces  all,  I  am  persuaded;  more  or 
less  to  pay  their  devotions  at  the  shrines  of  Buddha. 

There  are  many  signs  of  the  thorough  unsettling  of 
the  popular  faith  in  Japan  in  all  these  old  ancestral 
creeds.  I  have  been  in  many  Shintoo  temples,  some 
of  them  very  neat  and  ela])orate  establishments,  but 
generally  I  was  almost  alone,  and  never  met  a  crowd 
except  upon  a  special  festival  occasion.  Confucian 
temples  are  very  rare.  And,  though  there  is  undoubt- 
edly in  progress  a  strong  effort  at  Buddhistic  revival 
on  the  part  of  the  leaders  in  the  priesthood  at  least,  it 
has  been  very  evident  to  me  that,  with  the  exception  of 
a  few  popular  temples,  possessing  reputation  for  ex- 
traordinary sanctity,  the  masses  of  the  people  are  not 
flocking  to  them  as  in  the  years  gone  by.  Those,  whom 
I  have  seen  at  Buddhistic  temples  are  generally  of  the 
poorer,  more  ignorant  classes,  those  least  affected  by 
the  important  political  and  social  changes  since  1868. 
The  vicAvs  l)eing  freely  set  forth  in  the  widely  circulated 
Japanese  press ;  the  instruction  which  is  being  encour- 
aged particularly  in  the  higher  schogls  ;  and  the  com- 
parative freedom  allowed  to  evangelizing  efforts  and  to 
the  public  profession  of  conversion,  all  indicate  that  the 
hold  of  the  old  faiths  is  very  weak  upon  the  popula- 
tions, and  that  the  time  is  specially  opportune  for  evan- 
gelizing work  among  the  Japanese.  The  greatly  alarm- 
ing fact  is  that  infidelity  and  free  religion  are  making 
vast  inroads  among  the  educated  classes.  The  out- 
side world  is  far  from  being  awake  yet  to  a  realiza^ 
tion  of  the  extent  of  these  educated  classes.  There 
are  twenty-five  thousand  well-taught  common  schools 
throughout  the  empire,  with  an  average  daily  attendance 
of  1,500,000.  Then  there  are  multitudes  of  high 
schools  and  special  schools  with  over  20,000  pupils, 
and  there  are  two  universities  of  very  advanced  and 
thorough  training.     The  oldest  is  in  Tokio,  with  eight 


110  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

hundred  students,  and  the  other,  with  half  as  many,  is 
at  Osaka. 

One  day  at  the  Kai-Sai-Gaku,  or  Tokio  Imperial 
University,  I  was  examining  the  mineralogical  cabinet, 
when,  in  the  presence  of  several  of  the  native  pro- 
fessors and  students,  a  foreign  professor  of  the  insti- 
tution sprung  upon  me  the  strongest  possible  assertions 
of  materialism  and  atheism.  Among  the  most  inter- 
ested listeners  was  the  assistant  director,  a  Japanese 
gentleman  of  thorough  classical  culture,  who  has  since 
been  appointed  president  of  the  Osaka  Imperial  Uni- 
versity, The  American  professor,  with  most  courteous 
manner  and  language ,  yet  with  spirit  most  bitter  against 
Christianity  and  painful  to  the  heart  of  belief,  declared 
that  science  denies  the  existence  of  God,  resolves  every- 
thing to  matter  and  its  necessary  laws,  and  that  Chris- 
tianity was  a  vast  humbug  —  he  knew  all  about  it ;  he 
had  tried  it ;  been  a  christian  himself,  and  could  affirm 
upon  his  honor  that  there  was  nothing  in  it  after  all  but 
ignorance,  superstition,  self-deception,  and  the  decep- 
tion of  others  to  the  unhappiness  of  the  individual,  and 
to  the  serious  interference  with  the  progress  of  society. 
I  told  him  that  if  President  Lincoln  had  heard  him  make 
such  a  statement,  he  would  quite  probably  have  been 
reminded  of  some  little  story,  similar  to  one  I  had 
heard  a  few  years  ago  in  the  state  of  Missouri.  There 
was  a  backwoodsman  in  Arkansas,  Avho  had  always 
slept  upon  the  floor  of  his  cabin,  a  block  of  wood  with 
his  coat  or  some  other  garment  wrapt  around  it  for  his 
only  pillow.  Neighbors  and  visitors  often  urged  him  to 
get  a  feather  pillow,  assuring  him  that  it  would  give  him 
a  vast  deal  more  of  comfort  and  of  rest.  Finally  he 
yielded  to  their  solicitations,  and  sent  an  order,  accom- 
panied with  a  postage-stamp,  to  St.  Louis,  to  a  largely 
advertised  furnishing  house,  requesting  by  return  of 
mail  a  single  feather.  He  put  it  without  anything  else 
on  his  stick  of  wood,  and  down  went  his  head  on  it 
with  a  bump  for  a  night's  repose.  But  he  saw  no 
advantage  in  it  at  all.  Over  and  over  he  rolled  his 
uneasy  head  upon  that  single  feather,  but  no  comfort, 


INFIDELITY    AND    MATERIALISM.  Ill 

no  rest,  no  satisfaction.  Finally  about  midnight  he  gave 
up  his  "  experience,"  took  the  insignificant  feather  and 
threw  it  out  of  the  window,  and  ever  afterwards  de- 
clared that  feather  pillows  were  a  humbug ;  he  knew 
all  about  them  ;  he  had  tried  them. 

The  professor  of  materialism  invited  me  to  his  house 
to  dine  that  evening.  Two  other  foreign  professors  of 
the  university  also  received  invitations.  They  were 
alike  materialists  and  atheists.  The  whole  entertain- 
ment was  delightfully  hospitable.  The  manners  of  the 
hostess  were  charming.  The  tact  and  good  nature  of 
the  host  were  remarkable  through  various  lines  of 
earnest  conversation  upon  the  leading  assumptions  of 
materialism  and  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  Christianity. 
This  personal  contact  with  three  leading  instructors  of 
the  university,  who  are  largely  moulding  the  minds  of 
thousands  of  the  choicest  young  men  of  Japan,  led  me 
to  realize  that  the  grand  difficulty,  which  Christian  Mis- 
sions are  in  the  future  to  encounter  among  the  Japanese, 
is  not  in  the  old  heathen  faiths,  but  the  un settlement  of 
all  religious  faith  ;  not  such  persecution  as  culminated  in 
the  cruelties  and  horrible  tortures  of  Shimabara,  but  the 
intolerance  of  false  science  ;  not  the  unwiHingnessof  the 
people  to  be  taught  by  our  missionaries,  but  the  greater 
number  and  often  the  greater  activity  and  tact  of  the  teach- 
ers of  error  to  prejudice  the  mind  of  Japan  against  Chris- 
tianity. Throughout  the  Empire  of  the  Eising  Sun, 
Satan  is  rapidly  throwing  off  the  black  garb  of  gross 
idolatries  and  heathen  superstitions,  and  arraying  him- 
self as  an  angel  of  light.  To  the  Japanese  he  presents 
a  microscope  as  the  solution  of  the  universe.  He  sets 
at  ease  their  consciences  by  obliterating  moral  distinc- 
tions. He  allays  the  anxieties  for  the  future  life  by 
demonstrating  its  absurdity.  This  is  the  roaring  lion, 
going  about  Japan  to-day,  seeking  whom  he  may  devour. 
And  he  is  devouring  multitudes.  I  noticed  in  the  Tokio 
public  library  no  department  so  well  supplied  as  that 
with  infidel  and  materialistic  literature.  The  daily  and 
weekly  press  indicates  a  strong  popular  tide  in  this  direc- 
tion.    Among  the  high  official  and  educated  classes  it 


112  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

is  quite  the  fashion  to  speak  disparagingly  of  Christian 
institutions. 

A  trip  of  a  week  to  Nikko,  nearly  a  hundred  miles 
to  the  north  of  Tokio,  is  quite  necessary  to  the  tourist, 
if  he  would  become  personally  acquainted  with  Japan. 
We  found  a  tolerable  stage  three-fourths  of  the  distance, 
while  the  remaining  miles  were  gone  over  very  easily  in 
a  jin-riki-sha,  or  large  baby-carriage,  drawn  by  one  man, 
and  pushed  by  another.  This  mode  of  conveyance  is 
very  common  in  Japan,  one  coolie,  however,  generally 
sufficing.  The  expense  is  only  from  four  to  seven  cents 
a  mile.  All  the  distance  is  on  a  magnificently  shaded 
avenue.  There  is  a  row  on  either  side  of  ancient  pines 
and  cryptomerias.  Near  Nikko  a  late  typhoon  had 
destroyed  many  of  these  monuments  of  the  glorious 
Tokogawa  dynasty  of  Shoguns.  Just  above  this  small 
city  are  the  most  sacred  shrines  of  Japan.  No  temples 
are  so  gorgeous  in  all  the  empire.  The  display  of 
carving  in  wood,  of  gilding  and  of  lacquer-work  is  very 
grand  and  beautiful.  Here  are  the  resting-places  of 
those  great  kings  lyeyusu  and  lyemitsu,  who  prepared 
their  tombs  and  adjoining  temples  to  be  fit  monuments 
to  their  glorious  reigns.  Buddhist  priests  have  them 
in  charge,  for  even  a  Shintoo  god  wants  the  light  of 
Buddhism  into  the  darkness  of  the  future.  Most  of  the 
distance  from  Tokio  is  over  a  level  plain,  thoroughly 
cultivated,  and  wonderfully  productive  of  rice,  barley, 
and  various  other  grains  and  vegetables.  But  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Nikko  is  mountainous,  and  the  scenery 
grandly  sublime.  Alone  I  wandered  over  the  summits 
for  the  views  and  exhilarations,  and  along  through  the 
valleys  among  the  quaint  interesting  people,  studying 
them  at  their  work  in  their  fields  and  shops,  their  tem- 
ples and  homes,  in  their  peculiarly  cultivated  gardens 
or  fishing  along  their  streams. 

There  seemed  to  be  quite  perfect  safety  in  travelling 
everywhere.  I  would  rather  go  overland  from  Awo- 
mori,  at  the  extreme  north  of  Nipon,  to  Shimonoseki 
at  the  extreme  south,  than  to  brave  the  Seven  Dials  at 
midnight  between  the  ]\Iuseum  and  Charing  Cross,  in 


PASSPORT    AND   SUBSTITUTE.  113 

London,  or  at  the  same  hour  to  be  out  of  sight  of  a 
policeman  in  some  of  the  districts  of  New  York  city. 
Now  and  then  I  fancied  one  or  more  of  the  disarmed 
and  disaffected  Samurai  looked  at  me  as  if  they  wished 
they  had  a  chance  at  my  neck  with  one  of  their  old 
sharp  swords.  But  one  can  get  along  very  well  in  this 
world,  if  he  encounters  nothing  more  serious  than  hate- 
ful looks  and  spiteful  words.  Of  course  I  had  my 
special  passport  from  the  Japanese  Foreign  Office, 
procured  through  our  American  Legation.  Otherwise 
I  could  not  pass  the  limit  of  twenty  miles  around  each 
treat}^  port.  Frequently  the  police  would  stop  me,  or 
call  at  my  hotel  and  demand  to  see  my  official  permit, 
or  authority  for  trespassing  upon  the  privacy  of  nine- 
tenths  of  these  queer  people.  I  was  surprised  to  find 
afterwards  that  I  had  been  made  to  tell  an  untruth  to 
all  these  polite,  uniformed  pigmies  of  men,  for  my  pass- 
port contained  the  information  that  I  was  a  very  sick 
man  in  search  of  health,  whereas  I  was  in  the  enjoyment 
of  perfect  health  and  vigor,  and  did  not  start  upon  a 
two  years'  round  tour  of  the  world  to  escape  doctor's 
bills.  I  wonder  what  those  Japanese  often  thought  of 
the  coincidence  between  the  unmistakable  passport,  and 
my  appetite  and  endurance.  It  Avas  very  evident,  how- 
ever, that  the  people  are  not  inclined  to  persevere  in 
their  exclusive  policy.  But  for  one  thing,  they  are 
quite  willing  that  decent,  orderly  foreigners  should 
travel  and  reside  among  them  an^^where  in  the  country. 
They  do  not  like  the  extra-territorial  clauses  in  their 
treaties  with  the  great  powers,  which  have  been  forced 
upon  them.  They  want  all  who  come  to  their  country 
to  place  themselves  under  their  laws,  as  is  required  by 
America  and  European  nations.  Until  that  is  allowed 
they  propose  to  keep  up  the  inconvenience  of  the  pass- 
port regulation. 

HoAvever,  we  found  that  something  more  than  even 
this  travelling  permit  from  the  Japanese  Foreign  Office 
was  necessary  for  lengthened  residence  at  any  place  out- 
side of  the  treaty  concessions.  We  wished  to  spend 
three  weeks  at  Tokio,  and  to  be  in  the  heart  of  the  city 


114  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

away  from  the  delightful  society  of  the  foreign  mission- 
aries and  diplomatic  agents  in  the  suburban  concession 
of  Tskiji.  But  on  the  second  day  the  question  came 
around  from  the  police  office  of  that  ward, ''  Who  stands 
for  you  ?  "  Was  it  possible  that  I  was  in  a  situation  to 
require  a  substitute  ?  Could  not  the  consideration  of 
personal  character  suffice  to  allow  my  residence?  We 
were  abundantly  provided  with  introductory  letters, 
some  of  them  to  leading  officials  close  to  the  person  of 
the  Mikado.  Would  they  not  show  who  we  were,  and 
let  us  pass?  No.  It  was  primarily  with  us  now  a 
question  of  substitution,  not  of  personal  character  at- 
tested to  ever  so  voluminously.  Japan  asked  of  me, 
not  who  are  you  ?  but  what  right  have  you  to  be  here  ? 
That  right  could  rest  only  upon  the  free  substitution  of 
some  well-known  Japanese  citizen  in  my  place  before 
the  court  of  justice.  The  man  was  found  and  accepted 
in  my  place.  Noav,  did  I  break  the  laws,  he  could  be 
punished.  Did  I  deserve  death,  he  would  die  for  me. 
So,  indeed,  is  it  with  any  who  would  reside  within  the 
limits  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  With  American,  Japan- 
ese, whoever  he  may  be,  the  question  of  Almighty  Jus- 
tice is  primarily  not  a  question  of  character,  but  of  sub- 
stitution ;  not  who  are  you  ?  but  what  right  have  you  to 
be  here?  And,  oh!  blessed  that  soul,  whether  upon 
the  banks  of  the  Ogawa  or  the  Potomac,  whether  around 
the  base  of  Fujiyama  or  Mount  Washington,  who  can 
point  to  the  Great  Intercessor  between  God  and  man, 
and  declare,  he  is  my  accepted  substitute.  Have  I 
transgressed  ?  "  He  was  wounded  for  my  transgres- 
sions. He  was  bruised  for  my  iniquities.  The  chas- 
tisement of  my  peace  is  upon  him.  And  with  his  stripes 
I  am  healed ! "  I  was  delighted  to  meet  this  clearly 
defined  custom  of  substitution  among  the  Japanese.  It 
is  good  working-ground  among  the  thoughts  of  the  peo- 
ple for  evangelical  doctrine.  Unitarianism  can  make 
no  headway  with  them.  Their  alternative  is  evangeli- 
calism or  materialism.  There  can  no  sentiment  be 
awakened  among  them  hostile  to  primary  legal  aspects 
in  salvation. 


THE   TOKAIDO.  115 

Assured  of  the  safety  and  practicability  by  this 
northern  experience,  we  arranged,  wife,  son  and  self, 
to  take  now  a  much  longer  journey  through  the  inte- 
rior of  Japan.  It  was  to  be  nearly  three  hundred 
miles,  from  the  vicinity  of  Tokio  to  Kiyoto.  Prelim- 
inary journeys  were  made  between  Yokohama  and 
Tokio  by  steam  railway,  and  from  the  former  place 
to  Kamakura  and  Dai  Butsu  by  jin-riki-shas.  Then, 
turning  from  the  quite  Europeanized  jiort  city  of  Yoko- 
hama, we  commenced  two  weeks  of  exceedingly  inter- 
esting experience,  chiefly  upon  the  celebrated  Tokaido, 
or  imperial  highway,  between  the  eastern  and  western 
capitals.  This  avenue  is  a  continuation  of  the  one  from 
Nikko  to  Tokio.  It  also  is  shaded  almost  the  entire 
length  with  grand  old  cryptomeria  japonica  cedars  that 
loom  up  on  both  sides,  and,  uniting  overhead,  form  a 
cathedral-like  nave  all  the  way  to  the  Holy  City  of  the 
Japanese.  We  take  no  guide.  We  hire  no  interpreter. 
Desiring  an  experience,  we  will  suffer  no  intrusion. 
The  question  of  safety  having  been  settled,  we  welcome 
all  the  perplexities,  and  misunderstandings,  and  queer 
experiences  involved  in  life  among  a  strange  people,  of 
whose  lano^uao'e  we  do  not  understand  over  a  hundred 
words,  and  all  whose  habits  of  life  are  as  different  as 
possible  from  those  to  which  we  have  been  accus- 
tomed. Every  day  we  rehired  jin-riki-shas  and  men, 
one  each  for  us  three,  and  an  extra  for  the  baggage, 
having  sent  all  the  heavy  trunks  around  by  sea  to  await 
our  arrival  at  Kobe.  Sometimes  our  human  horses 
would  get  a  corner  on  us,  and  then  it  would  be  close 
bargaining.  But  at  the  utmost  their  prices  were  ridi- 
culously low,  not  averaging  out  in  the  country  over  five 
cents  a  mile.  In  the  native  hotels  we  had  rich  experi- 
ences enough  to  fill  a  volume.  The  principal  room, 
always  assigned  us,  was  invariabty  clean  and  comfort- 
able. The  floors  were  so  polished,  and  the  matting 
woven  of  so  fine  a  material,  that  no  one  would  think 
of  entering  without  conforming  to  the  Japanese  custom 
of  taking  off"  the  shoes.     We  carried  with   us  a   full 


116  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

supply  of  canned  meats  and  vegetables  and  fruits,  yet 
trusted  to  the  native  hotels  for  rice  and  eggs.  Imagine 
putting  up  for  the  night,  receiving  every  possible  atten- 
tion from  perhaps  a  dozen  servants,  being  furnished 
with  all  the  nicely  cooked  rice  and  fresh  eggs  wanted 
both  for  dinner  and  breakfast,  having  choice  of  cold 
or  hot  water  baths,  being  provided  with  lire  and  lights, 
and  then  having  the  formidable  bill  presented  on  de- 
parture, to  balance  account  for  the  Avhole  party,  of 
forty-five  cents  I  That  was  just  it  —  no  more ;  pre- 
cisely fifteen  cents  each  —  no  half  price  for  children. 
And  it  was  the  same  all  through  the  country  —  the 
regular  rate.  Had  I  told  those  simple-hearted  people 
of  the  three  and  four  and  five  dollars  a  day  hotels,  they 
would  have  held  up  their  hands  in  horror  at  the  fabu- 
lous extortion,  and  alike  at  the  insanity  of  those  Avho 
submit  to  it.  There  was  so  much  snow  on  Fujiyama, 
we  could  not  climb  that  sacred  mountain,  but  we  skirted 
its  base,  and  the  more  we  became  acquainted  with  it 
from  different  points  of  observation,  the  less  we  won- 
dered at  the  high  veneration  in  which  it  is  held  through- 
out Japan.  It  seemed  some  days  as  if  we  were  all  the 
while  ridino-  into  and  out  of  villagfes.  The  houses  are 
small  cottages,  mostly  covered  Avith  thatched  roofs. 
The  people  are  mostly  dressed  in  dark-colored  cotton 
goods,  the  wealthier  using  silk  largely.  The  style  is 
loose-flowing,  l)elted  at  the  waist.  The  men  shave 
their  heads  in  front,  and  tie  up  what  remains  in  a  bent 
forward  top-knot.  The  female  hair  is  done  up  in  too 
elaborate  a  fashion  for  masculine  description.  They 
all  have  to  employ  barbers,  l)ut  a  cent  is  a  sufficient 
outlay  for  every  third  da}'.  All  along  the  countr}^  ap- 
pears under  the  most  thorough  cultivation.  Rice  is  the 
great  staple.  Along  the  hill-sides  a  large  quantity  of 
tea  is  raised,  mostly  for  home  consumption,  for  the 
Japanese  are  great  tea-drinkers.  The  sail  across  Lake 
Biwa  was  charmino-.  The  crossing;  of  the  three  moun- 
tain  ranges,  especially  the  Hakoni  Pass,  was  thrillingly 
interesting,   jin-riki-shas    being   there    exchanged    for 


MODES    OF   TRAVEL. 


117 


congos,  or  baskets  carried  upon  the  shoulders  of  men. 
We  had  them  "for  style,"  but  by  no  means  cared  for 
ridino-  all  the  way.  From  Kiyoto  to  Osaka  and  thence 
to  Kobe  there  is  steam-railway,  and  the  extension  is 
almost  completed  to  Otsu,  the  large  city  at  which  we 
landed  from  Lake  Biwa. 


118  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER   Vm. 

MISSIONARY  WORK  IN  JAPAN. 

■HOUGH  many  glowing  descriptions  have 
been  written  of  Japan,  its  natural  features, 
its  climate,  and  the  affability  and  enterprise 
of  its  population,  it  must  not  be  thought 
that  the  missionary  mine  here  has  nothing 
of  the  depth  and  dampness  and  foulness 
which  Carey  found  in  India.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  many 
christians  in  the  home  lands  have  hastil}^  concluded  that 
there  is  little  if  any  use  of  holding  on  to  this  rope, 
since  the  missionaries  move  over  only  into  a  charming 
valley,  where  life  has  every  physical  enjoyment,  and 
where  the  evangelizing  work  must  be  fully  as  congenial 
as  in  the  vast  majority  of  the  parishes  in  America  and 
Britain.  But  there  are  other  things,  which  can  especially 
try  God's  servants,  and  make  them  the  sul:)jects  of 
the  liveliest  S3^mpathy  everywhere,  besides  the  wilting 
sun  of  the  tropics  and  the  icebergs  of  Greenland ;  other 
causes  besides  Burmah  fever  and  African  malaria ;  other 
influences  than  native  persecution  and  difficulty  of 
securing  the  necessaries  of  life.  Thus  there  is  a  volatile 
superficial  element  in  the  Japanese  character,  which 
continually  requires  a  very  large  discount  to  be  made 
in  reaching  the  substantial  results  of  missionary  labor. 
The  remarkably  sudden  political  and  social  revolutions 
have  assisted  to  break  up  the  faiths  of  the  people  too 
suddenly.  Even  Shintooism  or  Buddhism  or  even 
Fetishism  is  better  than  no  religion.  Ministers  and 
other  christian  laborers  at  home  find  their  hardest 
material  among  those  who  are  entirely  adrift  from  any 
strong  religious  convictions,  and  profess  to  believe  in 


SPECIAL    DIFFICULTIES.  119 

nothing  special.  Tn  Japan  to-day  the  widel}^  spread 
dearth  of  any  religious  ftiith  and  of  any  faith  in  religion 
is  worse  than  the  sirocco  of  the  desert  to  discourage  the 
arduous  missionary  toilers.  Then  the  strong  hold  which 
materialism  has  already  gained  among  the  multitude  of 
the  educated  classes,  and  the  ability  and  persistency 
with  which  ^  these  anti-christian  principles  are  being 
propagated  through  the  class-room  and  the  press, 
are  a  counteracting  power  of  which  we  can  form  but  little 
conception  in  the  home  lands,  where  the  spiritual  verities 
of  Christianity  stand  out  so  prominently  everywhere, 
and  the  dark  shadows  of  materialism  are  compelled  to 
meet  the  sun  at  midday.  Moreover  the  heathen  priest- 
hood of  Japan  are  not  content  to  see  their  influence  so 
rapidly  slipping  out  of  hand,  and  never  were  more  ear- 
nest efforts  beinof  made  to  recover  lost  orround,  and  to 
refasten  upon  the  people  the  chains  of  bigotry  and  super- 
stition. The  new  temple  at  Tokio,  costing  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  the  magnificent  theological  school  of 
the  Buddhists  at  Kiyoto,  the  extensive  repairs  and  new 
building  at  Nikko,  the  enterprise  shoAvn  around  Asa- 
kasa  to  popularize  that  temple,  the  new  and  elaborate 
care  being  taken  of  the  great  Buddha's  statue  at  Kama- 
kura,  and  many  other  indications  I  noted  along,  prove 
that  our  missionaries  in  Japan  are  encountering  a  mighty 
effort  at  Buddhistic  revival.  Then,  too,  the  government 
is  doing  eveiything  it  can  to  re-establish  Shintooism  in 
the  interest  of  national  patriotism.  Many  new  temples 
are  being  built  and  surrounded  with  beautifully  orna- 
mented parks.  And  perhaps  the  chief  discouraging 
feature  in  Japanese  evangelization  to-day  is  the  prevail- 
ing impression  that  Christianity  is  something  that  can  be 
put  on  like  other  elements  of  the  foreign  civilization. 
They  come  to  our  chapels,  as  they  would  go  to  stores 
to  look  at  new  goods  for  clothing.  It  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at ;  the  last  dozen  years  have  been  crowded  so 
full  of  the  adopting  of  the  political  and  social  ways  of 
foreigners.  Taking  all  things  into  account,  missionary 
labor  in  Japan  is  fully  as  arduous  and  trying  as  almost 
anywhere  on  the  foreign  field.     In  some  respects  it  pre- 


120  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

sents  elements  of  peculiar  embarrassment,  well  calcu- 
lated to  put  the  faith  of  our  laborers  to  the  severest  test, 
and  to  make  occasion  for  our  warmest  sympathies  and 
most  earnest  prayers. 

The  cordial  fraternal  spirit  among  the  missionaries  of 
the  various  societies  is  very  conspicuous  in  eTapan.  It 
is  perfectly  plain  to  the  people  that,  while  those  chris- 
tians go  under  different  names,  they  l^elong  to  one 
family  of  religious  faith.  "  Behold  how  they  love  one 
another ! "  was  a  frequent  exclamation  in  my  own  mind, 
as  I  met  them  in  union  conferences,  in  associated  work 
upon  the  study  of  the  language,  in  general  committee- 
labor  over  Bible  translation,  in  the  organic  co-operation 
of  three  of  the  prominent  denominations  in  the  theo- 
logical seminary  instruction  at  Tokio,  in  the  support 
given  by  the  missionaries  generally  to  the  weekly  re- 
ligious paper  published  at  Kobe  under  the  superintend- 
ence of  the  Congregationalist  mission,  in  the  promis- 
cuous character  of  the  social  gatherings,  and  in  the 
thorough  familiarity  which  the  missionaries  of  the 
different  societies  showed  in  each  other's  work  as  well 
as  their  lively  sympathies  and  remarkable  charities  of 
judo^ment.  One  cannot  wander  much  over  the  great 
household  of  faith,  without  finding  some  variations  of 
temperature  in  the  different  rooms.  Why  it  is  so,  is 
not  always  easy  to  tell.  Certain  it  is,  that  in  none  of 
the  mission  lands  of  the  world  have  we  seen  the  true 
unity  of  the  christian  spirit  more  beautifully  and  prac- 
tically illustrated  than  among  our  evangelizing  laborers 
in  Japan.  Their  criticisms  have  fewer  barbs,  their  dif- 
ferences of  judgment  are  held  more  pleasantly,  and 
generally  when  compelled  to  take  divergent  paths  they 
prove  nearly  parallel,  not  at  right  angles.  The  excep- 
tions to  all  this  are  so  rare  as  not  to  spoil  the  exemplary 
character  of  the  christian  union  of  heart  and  hand 
among:  all  the  evanofelizinof  laborers  from  abroad  in 
Japan.  Their  correspondence  home,  and  their  conver- 
sations about  the  home  churches  and  ministry  and  boards 
and  committees  and  secretaries  have  repeatedly  im- 
pressed us  as  specially  free  from  bitterness,  and  hasty 


CLIMATE    ON    TEMPER.  121 

judgment,  and  lack  of  sympathy.  I  believe  the  reason 
is  in  the  climate.  Not  that  the  missionaries  to  Japan 
have  more  solidity  of  character,  more  intelligence,  more 
piety  ;  but  that  they  are  not  so  subject  to  those  depress- 
ing and  harassing  climatic  influences  which  prevail  al- 
most all  over  the  continents  of  Asia  and  Africa.  I 
know  I  felt  a  great  deal  more  irritable  in  China  and 
Siam  and  Burmah  and  India  than  in  Japan.  Those 
dreary  monotonous  plains  and  filthy  habits  of  the 
Chinese  ;  those  long-continued  rains  and  rank  malarial 
swamps  of  Siam  and  Burmah ;  and  those  famines  and 
terrible  heats  and  dreadful  abominations  of  Hinduism  ; 
they  make  Asia  more  trying  for  residence  than  «Tapan 
with  its  prevailing  cleanliness  and  politeness,  its  beauti- 
ful landscapes,  and  its  salubrious  climate.  It  is  well 
known  what  diflerences  climatic  influence  makes  be- 
tween the  temperaments  of  residents  in  our  southern 
and  northern  states,  as  also  between  the  people  in  the 
south  and  north  of  Europe.  This  consideration  should 
be  borne  in  mind  in  forming  comparative  judgments 
upon  missionaries  and  their  work,  and  sometimes  and 
upon  some  sul>jects  in  giving  fair  and  equitable  consid- 
eration to  their  varied  testimonies. 

We  have  met  a  few  missionaries  in  Japan  who  would 
claim  that  our  impressions  of  the  physical  conditions  of 
residence  in  that  country  are  too  pleasant,  and  there- 
fore misleading.  They  have  felt  a  few  shocks  of 
earthquake,  have  seen  a  few  cyclones,  have  experienced 
in  their  neighborhoods  a  few  epidemics ;  and  forth- 
with, they  are  very  positive  that  the  physical  trials  of 
their  missionary  lives  are  extraordinary.  A  short  vaca- 
tion of  travel  upon  the  continent  would  materially 
modify  such  impressions.  Quite  generally  missionaries 
feel  that  their  localities  are  those  of  peculiar  hardship. 
I  met  a  returned  missionary,  who  went  out  years  ago 
directly  to  her  work,  never  saw  but  two  or  three  other 
central  stations,  and  came  back  directly  upon  her  vaca- 
tion. I  mentioned  certain  of  the  physical  discomforts 
of  the  missionaries  at  certain  other  places,  and  she  very 
confidently  replied,  that  though  I  had  seen  more  than 


122  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

a  thousand  foreign  missionaries  at  their  work,  and  had 
become  personally  familiar  with  their  conditions  of  life, 
yet,  as  I  had  never  visited  her  station,  I  could  not 
appreciate  the  utter  extremities  of  self-denial  and 
physical  discomfort  to  which  the  missionary  may 
be  subjected.  It  would  be  a  good  thing  to  give  all 
missionaries  a  little  travelling.  Perhaps  l)etter  to  allow 
them  permission  as  they  go  out,  and  occasionally  return 
for  home-rest,  to  stop  off  for  two  or  three  months  on 
the  way  for  detours  of  inspection  among  the  lives  and 
labors  of  missionaries  in  other  countries.  This  would 
help  them  a  little,  even  as  it  helps  the  minister  at  home 
so  much  to  air  his  opinions  outside  of  his  own  parish 
among  the  circumstances  of  other  ministers'  lives  and 
labors.  The  best  of  men  and  women  get  into  ruts.  It 
is  not  the  fault  of  the  wheel,  but  of  the  mud  in  which 
the  wheel  has  to  run.  I  desire  very  much  to  put  my 
shoulder  underneath,  and  lift  some  of  them  out.  I 
want  to  give  you  bird's-eye  glances  into  the  situation  of 
more  missionary  toilers  than  you  will  probably  ever 
visit.  It  will  help  you  in  your  own  feelings  and  in  your 
work  to  know  that  the  majority  are  suft^ring  as  much 
self-denial  and  discomfort  as  yourself,  and  many  of 
them  a  great  deal  more.  It  will  guard  you  from  dis- 
couraging recruits  for  your  special  region  and  station. 
And  an  evidently  comprehensive  view  of  missions  is 
sure  to  arrest  more  general  attention,  and  to  secure  the 
judgment  of  the  more  thoughtful. 

There  are  those  engaged  in  mission-work  in  Japan,  as 
well  as  in  most  all  other  lands,  who  are  independent  of 
any  home  society.  These  go  out  either  on  their  own 
responsibility,  or,  more  generally,  they  separate  upon 
the  field  from  their  fellow-laborers  and  the  home  super- 
vision. A  few  of  them  are  doing  a  great  deal  of  good, 
as  at  Yokohama,  Ching-Kiang,  Bombay.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  is  the  large  measure  of  harm  done  by 
the  spirit  of  insubordination  manifested,  by  the  temper 
of  egotism  presented,  and  by  the  quantity  of  friction 
almost  uniformly  produced  in  the  evangelizing  work  of 
the  given  locality.     Undoubtedly  mistakes  in  direction 


INDEPENDENT   MISSIONARIES.  123 

have  been,  and  will  yet  be,  made  by  bishops,  boards, 
and  executive  committees,  but  the  cause  can  better  en- 
dure their  mistakes,  than  that  undue  self-assertion  of 
the  missionary  which  consents  to  no  restraints  but  his 
own,  which  falls  in  with  no  opinions  except  those  which 
he  himself  has  formed,  and  which  will  consent  to  use 
the  home-agencies  of  the  Christian  Church  only  for  the 
purpose  of  collecting  and  paying  over  his  salary. 
Sometimes  the  very  best  of  people  confound  their  con- 
scientiousness with  their  wilfulness,  and  then  they  make 
a  very  unfortunate  exhibition  of  themselves.  The  ma- 
jority of  these  brethren  and  sisters  say  they  cannot  con- 
scientiously work  under  the  restrictions  of  any  of  the 
missionary  societies.  Rarely  did  I  fail  to  find,  before 
the  end  of  an  hour's  conversation  with  them,  that  in  the 
matter  of  their  disregard  of  the  home  church  authorities 
a  good  deal  more  of  wilfulness  than  of  conscientious- 
ness was  controlling  their  conduct.  There  is  a  measure 
of  liberty,  and  indeed  a  large  measure,  that  must  be 
allowed  the  far-away  missionary  on  his  field.  There 
are  problems  he  is  best  qualified  to  solve.  There  are 
questions  he  must  settle  there  and  then.  But  generally 
this  freedom  of  action  Avill  be  gladly  accorded  by  the 
home  authorities.  If  they  are  not  prompt  to  comply 
with  reasonable  suggestions  from  their  far-off  fellow- 
laborers  in  the  cause,  a  spirit  of  forbearance  and  con- 
ciliation, a  ready  and  patient  interchange  of  views,  and 
the  avoidance  of  any  threats  of  secession,  or  the  use  of 
any  other  kind  of  a  whip,  will  bring  them  in  time  to  see 
the  matter  in  its  true  light.  It  is  very  doubtful  whether 
seceders  should  remain  upon  the  foreign  field,  especially 
if  they  have  consented  to  go  out  under  the  authority  of 
any  of  the  missionary  societies  of  the  Church.  They 
go  under  the  Lord,  indeed,  and  under  his  great  commis- 
sion, but  also  under  freely-assumed  and  distinctly- 
understood  obligations  to  those  who  consent  to  their 
being  associated  with  certain  important  work  for  whose 
protection  and  support  God  has  seemed  to  make  them 
specially  responsible,  to  those  who  send  them  out  across 
seas  and  lands  at  great  cost  and  then  provide  for  them 


124  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

during  the  years  required  for  learning  the  language 
when  their  services  are  comparatively  of  small  account ; 
yes,  the  missionary  is  also  under  obligation  to  the  home 
churches  and  their  authorized  representatives,  which 
obligation  he  cannot  discharge  simply  by  a  polite  bow 
and  a  word  of  acknowledgment  when  stepping  out  into 
his  "  conscientious  "  liberty.  The  least  it  would  seem 
he  could  do  in  all  honor  and  christian  spirit,  would  be 
to  accept  immediately  his  home  tickets,  and  if,  after 
personal  conferences  at  "the  rooms  "  and  time,  the  dif- 
ferences of  judgment  prove  irreconcilable,  remain  away 
from  that  field,  or  go  to  such  a  part  of  it  as  shall  be  too 
remote  for  interference  and  friction.  Generally  the  call 
is  a  decisive  one  to  stsiy  at  home,  and  let  foreign  mis- 
sions almost  alone.  I  am  persuaded  that  many  good 
christians  in  the  home  churches  could  not  do  the  foreign 
mission  cause  more  good  than  to  resolve  henceforth  not 
to  encourage  missionaries  independently  of,  and  there- 
fore presumably  antagonistic  to,  the  regularly  constituted 
agencies,  not  to  give  sympathy  and  support  to  those 
whose  letters  or  conversations  show  them  under  the 
mastery  of  a  spirit  of  insubordination  and  of  criticism 
toward  the  home  administration,  and  who  assume  that, 
because  they  have  had,  or  supposed  the}'  had,  the  gift 
of  missionary  consecration,  therefore  they  possess  a 
monopoly  of  all  other  gifts  of  conscience  and  judgment 
and  reason  reo-ardins:  the  evano-elization  of  the  whole 
world.  It  is  easy  for  a  disaffected  missionary  to  tell 
his  little  touching  stories,  and,  by  his  one-sided  state- 
ments, enlist  christian  sympathy  against  the  general 
management  and  best  interests  of  the  mission  work  of 
the  various  branches  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  Against 
such  often  well-meant,  but  most  injudicious,  efforts, 
those  christians,  especially  of  limited  missionary  infor- 
mation, and  of  generous  impulses,  need  to  be.  on  their 
constant  guard. 

The  Congregationalists  are  doing  a  grand  work, 
especially  in  the  education  of  a  native  ministry  at 
Kiyoto.  They  have  here  about  a  hundred  students  in 
their  training-school.     It  is,  indeed,  the  height  of  wis- 


KIYOTO    TRAINING-SCHOOL.  125 

dom  to  recognize  the  fact,  —  as  nota])ly  also  the  Metho- 
dists are  doing  in  Yokohama,  the  Presbyterians  and 
others  in  Tokio,  and  the  English  Episcopalians  in  Naga- 
saki,—  that  the  great  heathen  countries  must  be  evan- 
gelized chiefly  through  the  agency  of  a  native  ministry. 
Home  christians  at  the  utmost  can  only  plant  christian 
institutions  at  centres  of  population,  Avhich  under  God's 
blessing  shall  equip  the  mighty  host  that  is  to  go  forth 
among  the  thousand  millions  to  sow  the  seed  and  reap 
the  harvest  of  the  kingdom.  A  native  ministry  is  better 
qualified,  not  only  by  its  sufficiency  of  numbers,  l)ut 
by  its  comparative  inexpensiveness,  its  freedom  from 
the  prejudices  felt  against  foreigners,  its  more  accurate 
and  practical  knowledge  of  the  people,  and  its  reliabil- 
ity in  the  examination  attendant  upon  the  reception  of 
church  members.  This  Kiyoto  training-school  is  well 
supplied,  not  only  with  scholars,  but  also  with  teachers 
and  buildings.  Superintendent  Rev.  J.  D.  Davis,  was 
a  colonel  of  the  American  Union  army  in  the  late  war, 
and  shows  here  also  the  qualities  of  heroism  and  leader- 
ship. It  Avas  a  pleasure,  never  to  be  forgotten,  to  dine 
and  spend  an  evening  at  the  home  of  the  native  presi- 
dent. Rev.  J.  A.  Xeesima,  a  home  provided  by  the  gen- 
erosity of  a  Boston  christian,  and  filled  with  love  to 
God  and  consumino:  desire  for  the  evano-elization  of 
Japan.  As  much  as  possible  of  the  principle  of  self- 
support  is  introduced  into  this  training-school.  Not 
only  is  the  utmost  use  made  of  vacations  and  of  the 
manual  work  required  upon  the  premises,  ])ut  also  as 
much  as  possible  of  the  routine  of  instruction  is  placed 
in  the  hands  of  the  advanced  classes. 

Upon  introduction  to  this  training-school  for  a  native 
ministry,  I  was  asked  to  address  them.  "  Who  will  be 
my  interpreter?"  "You  will  need  no  interpreter,"  was 
the  astonishing  reply.  And  true  enough,  half  of  them 
understood  English  quite  perfectly,  and  the  other  half 
could  make  out  most  of  the  lines  of  the  speaker's 
thought.  A  little  while  after  the  close,  a  committee  of 
three  of  the  young  men  Avaited  on  me  Avith  a  request  that 
I  address  them  an  hour  daily  during  my  stay  in  Kiyoto. 


126  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

It  was  impossible  not  to  comply,  especially  after  be- 
coming acquainted  with  them,  and  through  them  Tvith 
twenty-two  others  of  their  school-mates.  Their  story 
is  one  full  of  encouragement  to  all  missionary  toilers  and 
to  all  their  supporters  in  the  home  lands.  Some  years 
ago  a  christian  layman  from  America  engaged  through 
a  Japanese  consul  to  go  to  the  empire  of  the  rising  sun 
in  the  capacity  of  a  teacher.  He  was  assigned  to  a  po- 
sition far  to  the  south,  with  the  strictest  injunctions  not 
to  teach  the  religion  of  Jesus,  nor  to  say  an3'1:hing  cal- 
culated in  the  presence  of  the  boys  of  his  school  to 
bring  the  religion  of  their  fathers  into  disrepute.  They 
did  not  know  there  are  other  ways  besides  the  tongue 
to  speak  forth  in  witness  of  Jesus  Christ.  A  living 
christian  may  have  his  mouth  closed,  and  his  every 
action  watched  more  closely  than  was  Daniel  at  Babylon, 
but  he  will  testify,  in  inaudible  yet  comprehensible  lan- 
guage, of  the  glorious  hope  he  has  w^ithin  him  as  an 
anchor  to  his  soul.  He  cannot  help  letting  it  be  known 
that  he  is  the  possessor  of  a  peace  the  world  cannot 
give,  and  the  world  cannot  take  away.  Said  these 
young  men  to  me,  "  Our  teacher's  whole  bearing,  his  con- 
stant spirit  and  his  unspoken  words  so  impressed  us 
that  we  had  to  believe  as  he  believed."  His  soul  was 
expanded  and  filled  with  such  great  thoughts  of  God  and 
heavenly  things,  that  as  he  moved  along  through  life's 
waters,  as  it  w^ere,  a  current  was  created  that  drew 
irresistibly  all  the  little  craft  about  him.  Unknown 
to  the  teacher,  forty  of  the  l)oys  and  young  men  of  the 
school  gathered  in  an  adjacent  grove,  and  signed  a  solemn 
covenant  to  give  up  idolatry,  to  believe  in  the  religion 
in  which  their  teacher  believed,  and  to  worship  hence- 
forth only  the  God  whom  he  worshipped.  Immediately 
their  light  also,  if  it  be  genuine,  must  shine  out.  Their 
parents  and  the  whole  community  were  soon  necessa- 
rily informed.  The  teacher  was  dismissed  ;  the  school 
broken  up  :  and  many  of  these  forty  young  disciples 
of  Christ  imprisoned.  But  tAventy-five  of  them  at 
least  held  on  so  faithfully,  that  ultimately  they  were 
gathered  into  this  Kiyoto  training-school ;  and  fifteen  of 


127 


them  were  in  a  few  weeks  to  graduate  and  go  forth  as 
preachers  of  the  gospel  to  as  many  cities  and  populous 
towns  throughout  Japan. 

Little  does  the  faithful  christian  laborer  know  how 
God  is  working  by  his  side.  He  thinks  he  sees  all  that 
is  being  accomplished ;  and  the  poverty  of  the  results, 
as  well  as  the  limitations  both  of  ability  and  of  oppor- 
tunity, are  very  discouraging  to  him.  "  If  only  I  had 
been  assigned  to  such  another  field  of  labor  ! "  the  mis- 
sionary  is  tempted  to  say.  If  only  I  had  the  faculties 
and  favora])le  chances  which  such  others  have  !  every 
christian  toiler  is  sometimes  tempted  to  reflect.  But 
with  all,  God's  way  is  very  much  as  the  way  of  rice- 
planting  in  Southern  China.  There  when  the  first  crop, 
which  is  not  the  best  one,  has  nearly  reached  its  growth, 
the  Chinamen  go  along  in  between  the  rows  and  plant 
the  little  tender  shoots  of  the  rice  for  the  second  crop, 
all  their  work  being  covered  over  immediately  by  the 
nearly  ripening  stalks.  The  best  crop  is  now  all  plant- 
ed and  growing,  but  it  is  not  seen,  until  the  harvest  of 
the  first  and  advanced  rows  is  gathered.  Then  the  land 
is  discovered  clothed  with  the  most  beautiful  velvety 
green,  and  the  prospect  is  the  brightest  of  the  year. 
So  is  God's  spirit  planting  between  all  our  rows.  So  is 
he  working  by  our  side ;  his  perfect  work  incident 
to  our  imperfect  toiling.  But  we  do  not  see  it :  none 
see  it.  But  by-and-by,  oh  ! — how  beautiful  it  Avill  look 
when  we  are  gathered  home  ;  how  promising  of  greater 
fruitfulness  and  greater  glory  to  God  ! 

The  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Missions  in  Japan 
have  given  a  great  deal  of  time  and  talent  to  Bible 
translation.  Others  have  eflSciently  cooperated  with 
them.  But  in  the  New  Testament  work  the  Baptist 
member  of  the  translation  committee  has  worked  apart 
from  the  rest,  not,  it  is  understood,  on  mere  denomina- 
tional grounds,  for  herein  the  christian  fraternity  and 
deference  of  feeling  would  have  prevailed.  But  there 
was  a  variation  of  judgment  with  regard  to  the  best 
form  of  the  written  language  into  which  to  translate  the 
Bible.     The  separating  brother.  Rev.  N.  Brown,  D.  D., 


128  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

who  by  general  consent  has  made  an  admirable  transla- 
tion of  the  New  Testament,  felt  that  the  common  pho- 
netic characters,  separate  entirelj/  from  all  the  Chinese 
arbitrary  symbols,  should  be  used.  Thus  the  Japanese 
Scriptures  Avould  be  intelligible  to  almost  all  the  people. 
The  others,  as  J.  C.  Hepburn,  M.  D.,  the  lamented  Rev. 
S.  R.  Brown,  D.D.,  and  Rev.  D.  C.  Green,  D.  D.,  re- 
spectively Presbyterian,  Reformed,  and  Congregational, 
believed  that  the  more  literary  and  classical  style  was 
the  best  adapted  for  a  standard  Japanese  Bible.  They 
perhaps  took  more  into  account  the  amazing  rapidity, 
with  which  the  thorough  educational  system  of  Japan  is 
being  established  throughout  the  empire,  and  the 
demand  of  every  educated  Japanese  that  his  books  shall 
be  in  the  classic  literary  style.  In  this,  multitudes  who 
have  had  no  education  in  any  of  the  twenty-five  thou- 
sand new  schools  of  the  empire  ivill  imitate  those  w^ho 
have.  It  is  probably  best  that  both  of  these  forms  of 
translation  have  been  secured,  and  now  of  each  the  de- 
mand must  regulate  the  supply.  That  demand  is  evi- 
dently at  present  more  for  the  style  Avhich  is  profusely 
ornamented  with  Chinese  hieroglyphics.  The  simple 
phonetics  with  the  elaborations  by.  the  side  do  not 
appear  to  satisfy  generally  the  popular  taste  of  the  edu- 
cated and  of  those  who  pattern  after  them. 

It  was  gratifying  to  see  the  buildings  which  both  the 
Reformed  and  Methodist  missions  have  erected  in 
Yokohama  and  Tokio.  Generally  speaking,  throughout 
the  world's  mission-field  the  Methodists  appear  to  be  the 
most  generous  in  their  use  of  brick  and  mortar  and 
wood.  It  is  a  serious  question,  what  limit  should  be 
placed  upon  the  outlay  of  money  for  the  homes  of  the 
missionaries,  the  houses  for  the  schools,  and  the  chapels 
for  the  public  services.  Shall  all  that  can  be  raised  for 
these  purposes  be  thus  expended?  Shall  simply  the 
varying  tastes  and  ideas  of  comfort  and  convenience  of 
the  missionaries  be  the  criteria  ?  Shall  the  examples  of 
others  be  followed,  either  in  lavishness  of  expenditure, 
or  meagreness  of  outlay,  for  the  sake  either  of  keeping 
up  appearances,  or  to  avoid  taking  unfair  advantage  of 


HOUSES  AND  FOOD  FOR  THE  LABORERS.     129 

those,  quite  as  worthy  in  themselves  and  work,  toiling 
alongside?  Shall  the  economical  styles  of  the  common 
native  houses  be  adopted,  or  may  the  missionaries, 
whenever  possible,  as  for  example  in  the  few  cases 
where  husband  or  wife  has  a  little  property  of  their  own, 
build  the  best  possible,  furnishing  luxuriously  and  orna- 
menting surrounding  grounds  after  the  manner  of  the 
rich  at  home  ?  Experience  has  abundantly  proved  that 
it  is  not  wise  to  ask  or  to  allow  our  missionary  laborers 
to  occupy  permanently  houses  built  in  the  ordinary 
native  style.  It  greatly  increases  the  risk  to  lives  that 
are  very  precious,  worth,  to  say  the  least,  many  years 
of  special  training  at  home,  at  generally  a  cost  of  not 
far  from  a  thousand  dollars  to  the  churches ;  another 
thousand  for  outfit  and  expenses  to  the  field ;  and  three 
thousand  more  before  the  language  is  acquired  so  as  to 
make  the  services  rendered  begin  to  be  a  paying  invest- 
ment. The  question  is  then  in  its  most  secular  aspects, 
— what  are  the  churches  to  do  Avith  their  five  thousand 
dollars  species  of  property  ?  Horse-men  and  cattle-men 
treat  their  animals,  when  of  such  value,  differently  from 
common  stock.  The  consideration  is  not  the  happiness 
of  the  creature,  but  simply  how  to  get  the  most  returns 
for  the  large  investment.  The  life  must  be  lengthened 
as  long  as  possible.  Such  food  and  comforts  must  be 
provided  as  will  insure  the  most  health  and  vigor  and 
elasticity  and  productiveness.  A  man  v/ith  a  five  thou- 
sand dollar  horse  knows  that  he  should  have  an  inside 
box-stall,  good  heavy  woollen  blankets,  a  full  supply  of 
the  best  hay,  oats,  and  corn-meal,  and  the  constant  atten- 
tion of  one  man  of  skill  and  experience.  This  would  be 
an  extravagance  with  a  horse  that  cost  only  a  hundred 
dollars.  Now,  along  this  line  of  the  most  cold-blooded 
worldly  policy,  the  churches  in  their  extensive  mission- 
ary experience  of  the  last  eighty  years  have  learned  a 
few  things.  A  missionary's  life  is  too  costly  to  allow 
him  to  risk  it  as  the  average  native  in  heathen  lands 
does  his.  The  average  length  of  life  in  Christian  lands 
is  from  fifteen  to  thirty  per  cent,  better  than  in  foreign 
mission  countries.     This  is  principally  on  account,  not 


130  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

of  climate,  not  of  unproductiveness  of  the  soil,  but 
because  of  the  low  level  of  civilization  of  the  popula- 
tions. It  is  largely  because  the  houses  are  so  wretch- 
edly adapted  for  human  habitations,  and  because  the 
kind  and  quality  of  the  food  used  are  so  inferior  to 
those  with  which  Christian  lands  have  become  familiar. 
Having  learned  then  how  to  prolong  human  life  on  an 
average  of  at  least  ten  years,  and  moreover  how  to 
make  it  fifty  per  cent,  more  healthy  and  vigorous  and 
effective,  we  do  the  shrewd  business  thing,  when  we 
insure  to  our  missionaries  that  protection  and  care  which 
are  calculated  to  so  largely  multiply  their  years  and 
productiveness. 

Christian  civilization  has  learned  also  that  the  aesthetic 
has  much  to  do  with  the  preservation  of  life  and  the 
securing  of  the  most  health  and  effectiveness.  The 
l^eautiful  in  our  homes  and  schools  and  sanctuaries  is 
also  the  useful.  It  is  the  smile  upon  the  face  of  the 
hard  rugged  experiences  of  this  world.  It  is  the  music 
that  comes  floating  on  the  air  from  heaven  amid  the 
discords  of  human  life.  Flowers  are  sometimes  as  good 
as  a  dinner  to  give  new  courage  to  the  soul ;  and  a  room 
ornamented  Avith  pretty  furniture,  ready  to  receive  the 
missionary  back  from  his  toils  through  the  day  among 
the  hovels  of  squalor  and  vice,  is  often  as  much  of  a 
rest  and  reinspiration  as  the  pillow  of  his  night's  repose. 
But  how  far  may  the  missionary  in  his  house  and  its 
furniture  indulge  in  the  beautiful,  if  he  can?  It  is 
hardly  worth  while  to  ask  those  many  foreign  mer- 
chants and  clerks  and  sea-faring  men,  who  will  fiercely 
criticise  missionaries  and  all  they  do  anyhow,  because 
chiefly  their  lives  of  purity,  their  hallowed  family  ties, 
and  their  constant  instructions  are  a  vivid  standing  pro- 
test against  their  own  moral  laxities  and  dissipations. 
Their  fangs  are  full  of  poison  to  dart  at  any  servant  of 
God,  whether  he  lives  in  a  palace  or  a  hut,  and  whether 
he  luxuriates  amid  aesthetic  beauties,  or  adopts  all  the 
discomforts  and  squalor  of  the  natives.  The  limit  to 
outlay,  next  to  ability,  should  be  consideration  for  the 
impression  produced  upon  the  native  populations,  as 


AESTHETICS  ;     THEIR    USE    AND    ABUSE.  131 

also  for  the  reflex  influence  upon  the  great  mass  of  the 
foreign  mission  constituency  at  home.  If  some  rich 
people  should  present  a  missionary  and  his  wife  with 
elal3orate  gold  watch-chains,  diamond  finger-rings,  and 
solitaire  ear-rings,  it  is  plain  the  fortunate  or  unfortunate 
recipients  had  better  not  let  them  be  seen  by  the  multi- 
tudes at  home  who  regularly  support  foreign  missions, 
or  by  the  thronging  heathen  along  their  paths  and  by- 
paths of  foreign  toil.  It  would  check  benevolences,  it 
would  encourao'e  wrono-  motives,  it  would  enkindle  en- 
vious  feelings  ;  at  sea  the  prevailing  criticisms  would  be 
made  more  bitter ;  and  among  the  teeming  millions  of 
heathendom  it  would  encourage  the  native  vanity  for 
personal  adornment,  divert  attention  from  the  spiritual 
aims  of  the  missionary,  and  compromise  character  in 
the  general  estimation.  The  same  is  very  much  the 
case  in  the  matter  of  mission  buildings  and  their  fur- 
nishings. A  self-denial  here  also  is  required.  It  is 
not  simply  what  our  missionaries  deserve.  Ah  !  multi- 
tudes of  them  deserve  palaces,  and  showers  of  wealth 
could  not  pay  our  obligations  to  them.  But  it  is  chiefly 
a  question  of  influence  abroad  and  at  home.  It  is  a 
part  of  the  broad  field  of  the  consecration,  where  also 
graces  may  be  cultivated  and  rich  fruits  gathered. 

There  exists  a  variety  of  opinions  in  Japan,  as  else- 
where, concerning  the  important  question  of  the  use  of 
Enoflish  in  mission  schools.  Some  make  a  o^reat  deal 
of  its  instrumentality ;  others  refuse  to  allow  its  intro- 
duction at  all.  There  are  those  who  seem  to  lean  to- 
ward the  opinion  which  his  Excellency  Arinori  Mori, 
then  assistant  minister  of  foreign  afijiirs,  and  now  min- 
ister to  England,  expressed  to  me  :  "The  Japanese  can 
never  become  christianized  except  through  the  English." 
His  idea  and  theirs  is  that  the  native  words  are  not  fit- 
ted to  convey  the  accurate  and  full  meanings  of  the 
divinely  inspired  thoughts  of  Christianity.  As  in  the 
providence  of  God  the  Greek  was  needed  to  communi- 
cate the  new  truths  which  Christ  brought  into  the 
world,  and  to  make  them  intelligible  to  the  various 
populations  along  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  so 


132  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

English  is  required  to-day  among  the  many  millions  of 
Japan.  On  the  other  hand  there  are  missionaries  who 
would  prefer  the  heartbreaking  alternative  of  giving  up 
their  work  and  going  home,  rather  than  do  the  harm, 
especially  to  the  girls,  of  opening  wide  in  their  faces  the 
doors  of  opportunity  to  them  of  almost  irresistible  and 
inevitable  immoralities.  The  native  girl  who  can  speak 
English  in  Japan,  they  say,  is  almost  certain  of  meeting 
unprincipled  foreigners,  whose  superior  wiles  and  facil- 
ity through  the  language  are  quite  sure  of  eflecting  her 
ruin  of  body  and  soul.  There  are  mission  schools, 
where  one  or  two  hours  of  English  instruction  a  day 
is  necessary  for  the  Japanese  government's  permission 
for  the  location  of  the  school  beyond  either  the  foreign 
concession  or  the  treaty  limits.  For  advanced  classes 
there  is  a  great  lack  of  text-books  in  the  vernacular, 
and  in  those  already  provided  there  is  often  vagueness 
and  uncertainty  of  meaning.  The  chief  hold  in  some 
of  the  mission  schools  upon  the  boys  and  young  men  is 
the  instruction  they  receive  in  the  English  language, 
but  for  which  the  government  schools  would  draw  them 
off  to  education  not  simply  secular,  but  surcharged  with 
heathenism  or  materialism  and  atheism.  As  state  uni- 
versity education  in  America  does  not  usually  content 
itself,  nor  might  it  be  possible,  with  mere  neutrality 
upon  religious  subjects,  but  in  its  spirit  and  personnel 
and  methods  strongly  antagonizes  evangelical  doctrine  ; 
so  Japanese  government  instruction,  especially  in  the 
higher  schools,  is  generally  inspired  with  the  most 
effective  hostility  to  the  christian  teachings  of  our  mis- 
sionaries. Moreover,  some  of  the  branches  of  the 
Church  Universal  adopt  English  instruction  as  their 
general  policy,  and  denominational  solicitude  is  on  the 
alert.  This  may  bvc,  and  sometimes  is  unduly  exer- 
cised, but  it  is  all  right  for  the  different  under-shepherds 
to  try  and  keep  their  own  flocks  at  home.  Yet  it  will 
not  do  to  always  stand  at  the  bars  and  let  the  fences  go 
to  ruins.  Many  churches  and  a  few  mission  stations 
have  suffered  most  seriously  from  over  anxiety  lest 
some  of  the  Lc^rd's  sh^ep  sliould  escape  into  some  other 
denominational  or  church  fold. 


ENGLISH    IN   MISSION    SCHOOLS.  133 

The  solution  of  this  difficult  problem  of  the  use  of 
English  in  mission  schools  seems  to  be  in  this  rule  with 
varying- exceptions  :  —  Always  incline  strongly  to  the  use 
of  the  vernacular,  and  introduce  English  instruction 
only  when  and  for  the  time  that  it  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary, or,  on  the  whole,  it  is  very  clearly  of  greater  benefit 
than  harm.  Results  have  abundantly  shown  that  in  all, 
even  the  most  poverty-stricken  languages  of  the  world, 
a  savins:  knowledoe  of  Jesus  Christ  has  been  communi- 
cated  to  the  people.  I  have  attended  religious  exami- 
nations of  people,  who  had  never  heard  a  word  of 
English  or  German  or  French  spoken,  until  their  inter- 
preter explained  to  me  the  delightful  christian  evangel- 
ical meaning  of  their  gibl^erish.  The  rapidity  with  which 
the  Gospel  is  winning  converts  in  all  lands,  and  the  fact 
that  the  largest  and  most  permanent  results  seem  to 
attend  upon  vernacular  la])ors,  should  strengthen  against 
the  temptations  to  Anglicize  our  mission  schools.  Gen- 
erally, where  I  have  noted  in  different  mission  stations  a 
migration  toward  the  schools  of  other  religious  socie- 
ties, or  toward  the  government  schools,  it  has  seemed 
to  me  that  there  were  other  reasons  than  the  English 
language  one,  why  the  one  missionary  was  losing 
his  hold,  and  the  other  missionary  or  the  secular 
teacher  strengthening  his  upon  the  scholars.  Personal 
qualities  of  nameless  magnetism  and  of  skill  in  man- 
agement have  appeared  to  me  the  more  frequently  to 
decide  the  question.  It  is  so  easy  to  one's  own  self- 
consciousness,  as  well  as  in  giving  testimony  to  others, 
to  lay  the  blame  of  failure  upon  some  abstract  principle 
or  variation  of  method,  instead  of  upon  lack  of  per- 
sonal qualifications.  Then,  I  think  many  missionaries 
really  over-estimate  the  desire  of  the  people  for  the 
English  language.  At  least  that  desire  does  not  seem 
to  me  to  be  generally  up  to  the  measure  of  the  neces- 
sary application  and  study  required  for  a  thorough- 
speaking  acquaintance  with  the  foreign  tongue.  Almost 
all  boys  in  our  home-schools  would  "  like  to  know  sur- 
veying." Nine  out  of  ten  of  them,  after  looking  at  a 
surveying  book,  with  its  pictures  of  angles,  and  base 


134  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

lines,  and  field  operations,  would  say  :  "  I  should  like  to 
know  surveying."  And,  perhaps,  nine  out  of  ten  of 
the  fond  parents  would  echo  the  superficial,  inconse- 
quential desire.  But  any  school-book  publisher  would 
be  very  foolish,  who  should  therefore  print  enough 
books  upon  surveying  to  supply  nine  out  of  ten  of  all 
the  boys  throughout  our  country.  I  am  persuaded  that 
a  very  little  English,  not  enough  to  command  very  much 
of  the  missionary's  time,  will  suflSce  to  supply  two- 
thirds  of  the  popular  demand.  The  missionary,  also, 
needs  to  guard  himself  against  the  temptation,  which  is 
increasing  around  him  in  our  day,  to  relax  upon  his 
efibrts  to  master  the  vernacular  under  the  half  impres- 
sion that  it  may  not  be  necessary.  IMany  times  it  has 
been  impressed  upon  me,  and  I  cannot  resist  the  duty 
of  bearing  witness  that,  with  a  few  exceptions,  they, 
who  are  the  most  strenuous  in  their  advocacy  of  the  use 
of  English  in  mission  schools,  have  not  been  those 
who  have  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  native 
language. 

It  is  a  question  somewhat  allied,  how  far  in  mission 
schools  the  pupils  shoukl  be  directed  and  encouraged  to 
drop  their  own  manners  and  customs,  and  adopt  those 
from  christian  lands?  Here,  again,  extreme  views  are 
taken  by  some  missionaries  in  Japan,  and  by  many  in 
other  lands.  Some  say  cliristian  manners  and  customs 
go  with  the  christian  religion,  and  cannot  be  neglected 
without  detriment  to  the  spiritual  truths  sought  to  be 
inculcated.  Along  with  the  Bible,  they  consider  neces- 
sary chairs  or  benches  in  the  school-room,  high  tables 
and  knives  and  forks  in  the  dining-hall,  reserved  bow- 
ings instead  of  prostrations  on  the  floor,  certain  refine- 
ments in  the  culinary  art,  some  alterations  in  attire, 
difierent  styles  of  music  for  song,  a  changed  standard 
of  taste  for  personal  and  house  adornments,  and  so  on, 
until  the  scholar  is  not  only  hopefully  converted,  but 
also  as  Americanized  or  Europeanized  as  possible.  An 
efibrt  Avas  made  in  Yokohama  some  years  ago  to  estab- 
lish a  mission  school  for  the  'M^etter  classes"  of  Japa- 
nese girls.     But,  ere  long,  the  parents  began  to  make 


CHANGING    NATIVE    MANNERS    AND    CUSTOMS.        135 

complaints  that  their  daughters  were  losing  their  refine- 
ments of  manner.  They  could  no  longer  make  becom- 
ing prostrations.  They  had  lost  their  gracefulness  in 
sitting  down  upon  their  floors  at  home.  They  were  dis- 
satisfied with  such  food  and  clothing  and  household 
arrangements  as  were  customary  in  Japanese  families, 
and  as  Avere  generally  within  the  limit  of  their  means  to 
provide.  It  became  necessary  to  materially  modify  the 
influence  of  that  school  in  these  directions,  and  to  hire 
immediately  an  accomplished  Japanese  gentleman  as  in- 
structor in  manners,  so  as  to  o-et  the  American  and  Ens:- 

'CD  O 

lish  awkwardness  out  of  them,  and  re-qualify  them  for 
agreeable  home-associates  and  pleasant  social  compan- 
ions in  good  Japan  life.  It  is  the  other  extreme  to 
study  in  every  way  to  conform  to  Japanese  manners 
and  customs.  The  teacher,  also,  will  squat  on  the  floor, 
and  is  sure  to  do  it  awkwardly  and  ridiculously.  No 
change  is  made  -in  the  diet  from  that  at  home,  no  diflfer- 
ence  in  dress,  no  alteration  in  management.  No  cheer- 
ful school-rooms  are  desired,  but  only  such  apartments 
as  can  be  rented  in  native  houses,  covered  with  native 
mats  and  ornamented  with  native  pictures.  New  aes- 
thetic tastes  maybe  awakened,  but  must  not  be  satisfied. 
New  ideas  of  means  and  methods  and  adaptabilities 
must  come  from  daily  contact  with  the  christian  teacher, 
l)ut  those  ideas  must  be  extinguished  as  far  as  possible. 
This  extreme  is  certainly  better  than  the  other.  I  have 
seen  few  sights  in  heathen  lands  more  pitiable  than 
native  young  man  and  women  educated  out  of  then' 
sphere.  They  cannot  endure  their  own  homes,  nor  are 
they  welcome  to  those  of  foreigners.  They  can  neither 
command  salary,  nor  marry  so  as  to  support  the  manner 
of  life  to  which  they  have  become  accustomed  in  the 
mission  schools.  What  can  they  do?  I  fear  almost  a 
majority  of  them  go  to  the  bad.  I  have  heard  sad  reci- 
tals of  many  of  them  w^ho  have.  And  yet  there  are  in- 
novations upon  the  native  manners  and  customs  which 
will  add  to  the  happiness  and  usefulness  of  the  scholar, 
and  yet  not  unfit  for  the  Japanese  home  and  social  life. 
The  horrible  blackening  of  the  teeth  by  the  women, 


136  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

ever  after  marriage,  may  be  strongly  discouraged,  as 
other  and  better  safeguards  for  virtue  are  introduced. 
The  betrothments,  v/ithout  deference  to  the  wishes  of 
the  parties,  and  the  absurdly  early  marriages,  may  be 
emphatically  discountenanced.  A  greater  care  than  be- 
longs to  the  native  manners  in  the  exposure  of  person 
should  be  taught.  Some  violations  of  the  laws  of 
health,  some  new  methods  of  the  treatment  of  disease, 
and  some  new  ideas  of  simple  beauty  and  adaptation 
should  be  pointed  out  by  the  teacher.  But  ever  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind  by  the  missionary  instructor 
that  nine-tenths  of  the  scholars  are  to  live  and  die  in 
their  simple  native  homes,  with  incomes  averaging  for 
whole  families  not  over  fifty  cents  a  day,  and  that  their 
happiness  and  christian  character  and  usefulness  will 
depend  very  much  upon  their  contentment  w^ith  their  lot 
in  life. 

Part  of  the  mission  worls:  at  Osaka  is  being  conducted 
more  thoroughly  upon  the  self-supporting  plan  than  at 
any  other  point  in  the  foreign  field.  The  theory  is, 
not  a  dollar  of  money  from  home  for  other  than  the 
missionary's  own  personal  or  family  support.  Counsel 
and  guidance  are  to  be  given  to  the  native  christians, 
but  they  must  build  or  hire  their  own  chapels  and 
schools,  support  their  own  pastors  and  teachers,  and 
pay  themselves  all  their  own  incidental  expenses. 
What  they  cannot  afibrd  themselves,  they  must  wait 
for ;  no  help  will  be  asked  or  furnished  from  foreign 
sources.  Indeed  the  leading  missionary  in  this  experi- 
ment, Rev.  H.  H.  Leavitt,  feels  that  his  personal  super- 
vision and  counsel  over  the  native  christians  should  be 
temporar}^ ;  that  before  many  years  his  best  service  for 
them  would  be  to  leave  them  alone  Avith  God  and  their 
own  responsibilities ;  and  so  his  distinct  understanding 
with  the  home  society  is  that  he  has  gone  out  for  only 
a  few  years'  service,  at  least  in  that  locality.  It  is  all 
a  very  interesting  experiment.  Yet  it  does  seem  as  if 
there  was  such  a  thing  as  overdoing  self-support.  No 
doubt,  in  many  cases  too  much  help  has  been  given  for 
the  o^ood  of  the  native  converts.    But  thus  far,  a  s^eneral 


VETERAN  LABORERS  AND  THEIR  SUCCESSORS.   137 

comparison  of  methods  and  results  seems  to  indorse  the 
principle  of  careful  helping  with  money  as  well  as  with 
sympathy  and  counsel  and  prayer.  And  as  to  leaving 
native  converts  alone  after  ten  or  fifteen  years  of  mis- 
sionary supervision,  that  does  not  yet  appear  best  from 
the  teaching  of  the  history  of  missions.  For  this  it 
takes  several  generations  to  develop  sufficient  strength 
of  faith  and  character.  Personal  conversion  is  a  great 
thing,  hut  to  have  had  a  christian  ancestry  is  another 
great  thing.  Churches,  strong  enough  to  stand  alone, 
to  bear  their  own  responsibilities  and  to  resist  all 
Avorldly  influences,  are  not  the  creatures  of  a  day.  Like 
the  human  frame  before  its  manhood,  they  must  put  oft' 
several  bodies.  Generations  must  come  and  go,  ere 
there  is  sufficient  stalwart  vigor  to  release  the  mis- 
sionary. 

At  Yokohama  there  is  a  very  efficient  union  church 
for  English-speaking  christians.  Its  late  pastor.  Rev. 
Dr.  Gulick,  who  had  charge  of  the  Bible  work  in 
Japan  and  China,  now  resides  in  Shanghai  in  care  of 
American  Bible  work  in  China.  Of  American  Epis- 
copalians, Bishop  Williams  and  his  six  clergy  and 
assistants  are  at  Tokio  and  Osaka,  laying  well  the  foun- 
dations for  future  church  growth.  A  large  proportion 
of  the  missionaries  are  young  men  and  women,  lacking 
yet  the  experience  of  their  elders,  and  still  evidently 
of  such  piety,  intelligence  and  culture,  as  to  qualif^y 
Ihem  soon  to  be  worthy  successors  of  those  who  shall 
have  gone  ])efore  them.  Indeed,  without  any  dispar- 
iigement  to  the  missionary  veterans,  or  to  those  who 
have  rested  from  their  labors,  but  wdth  glad  and  grate- 
iu\  recognition  here  as  elsewhere  that  the  law  of  Christ's 
cause  is  advancement,  I  testify  unreservedly  that  the 
young  junong  the  thousand  missionaries  I  have  met  in 
many  lands  are,  on  the  average,  possessors  of  more 
native  ability  and  larger  intellectual  acquirements  than 
those  who  belono^  to  the  o^eneration  of  their  fathers. 
Their  piety  has  not  yet  reached  the  mellow  ripeness  of 
their  elders,  nor  have  they  learned  many  of  the  lessons 
which  come  only  of  years.     But  it  is  very  encouraging 


138  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

of  more  thorough  work  and  larger  results,  as  we  study 
the  material  God  has  been  gathering  into  the  mission- 
ary force  during  the  last  decade.  The  AYesleyans,  we 
observe,  have  commenced  the  establishment  of  a  mis- 
sion. Single  women  missionaries  are  proving  very 
useful  in  Japan.  It  is  reliably  said  of  one  of  them, 
that  she  saved  a  mission  during  the  two  years  between 
the  death  of  the  male  missionary  in  charge  and  the 
arrival  of  his  successor.  The  openings  for  native 
preachers  throughout  Japan  are  remarkable,  in  that 
many  citizens,  without  any  immediate  intention  of 
changing  religion,  but  only  for  serious  information,  are 
promising  adequate  support  to  those  whom  the  mission- 
aries may  qualify  and  send  to  them.  Neither  the  Cath- 
olic nor  the  Greek  Churches  are  doing  very  much  yet  in 
the  country.  The  latter  is  about  to  erect  a  missionary 
college  at  Tokio.  The  former  has  made  nothing  like 
its  outlay  of  men  and  money  in  China.  Perhaps  here 
also  its  customary  shrewdness  is  manifested.  At  Kobe 
we  met  the  aged  sister  Gulick,  for  nearly  fifty  years 
with  her  husband  missionaries  at  the  Sandwich  Islands, 
and  whose  family  of  seven  missionary  children,  all 
reared  amid  heathen  influences,  show  what  can  be  done 
through  faith  and  prayer  and  tact.  But  for  other 
studies  of  comparative  missions,  their  principles,  meth- 
ods and  visil)le  results,  we  must  hasten  on  past  all  this 
beautiful  land  and  its  inland  sea,  bidding  farewell  at 
Nagasaki. 


FIVE  months'  glimpse  OF  FOUR  HUNDRED  MILLIONS.     139 


CHAPTEE  IX. 

CHINA,  GEOGRAPHICALLY  AND  HISTORICALLY. 

AN  it  be  we  are  approaching  a  country 
containing  a  population  of  four  hundred 
milhons  of  souls?  These  are  the  feires 
with  which  readers  about  China  are  most 
famiHar.  Many,  indeed,  staggered  by  the 
thought  of  such  an  immense  number,  forth- 
with pronounce  it  incredible  and  go  to  reducing  the 
estimates  even  down  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  millions,  or 
three  times  the  population  of  the  United  States  of 
America.  No  complete  census  has  been  taken  by  the 
Chinese  government  during  the  present  century.  Their 
last  returns  were  above  these  lowest  fiirures,  and  during- 
the  past  three  generations,  though  twenty  millions  of 
lives  were  lost  by  the  Taiping  rebellion,  and  twenty 
millions  more  by  the  late  northern  famine,  the  known 
rate  of  increase  of  population  has  at  least  doubled  those 
official  estimates.  Probably  then  as  now  it  would  be 
impossible  for  the  Chinese  government  to  secure  correct 
census  returns  from  more  than  half  or  two-thirds  of  its 
people,  on  account  of  the  unwillingness  of  under-officials 
to  have  their  tax  assessments  increased,  as  they  surely 
would  be,  with  an  almost  unlimited  demand  for  arrears 
also,  if  it  should  appear  that  their  districts  had  been 
under-estimated  at  Peking  as  regards  population  and  re- 
sources. After  a  five  months'  tour  of  thousands  of 
miles  through  the  country,  I  incline  to  the  highest  and 
most  familiar  estimate.  Notwithstanding  the  numerous 
great  cities,  the  people  are  evidently  agricultural  in 
much  larger  proportion  than  in  any  other  country  of 
the  world.     The  statistics  of  the  opium  trade  are  calcu- 


140  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

lated  to  thus  magnify  the  estimate.  So  also  the  rapidity 
with  which  whole  provinces  fill  up  from  immigration 
from  other  parts  after  being  nearly  depopulated  b}' 
sword  and  famine.  The  enormous  emigration  to  other 
lands,  as  to  Siam,  Japan  and  America,  indicate  an  over- 
flowing population.  From  well-known  characteristics 
of  the  Chinese,  the  country  must  be  full,  or  the  people 
would  not  migrate.  And  it  has  an  immense  territory  to 
fill.  There  are  1,300,000  square  miles,  which  is  eleven 
times  the  size  of  Great  Britain.  If  there  are  36,000,- 
000  of  people  in  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland, 
and  China's  average  population  to  the  square  mile  is 
equal,  then  we  have  for  the  population  of  this  colossal 
"  Celestial  Empire  "  almost  the  given  "  four  hundred  mil- 
lions." The  late  Chinese  ambassador  to  Paris  told  Dr. 
Legge,  that,  in  his  judgment,  this  was  the  correct  esti- 
mate of  the  population  of  his  country. 

When  visiting  the  province  of  Kwang-tung,  which 
lies  to  the  southwest  of  Formosa  and  has  the  well- 
known  Canton  for  its  capital  city,  I  took  an  inland  tour 
first  from  Swatow,  the  actual  port  of  the  legal  treaty 
port  of  Chau-chau-fu.  When  nearly  fifty  miles  from 
the  sea-coast,  we  had  our  boat  drawn  up  to  the  bank  of 
the  river,  and  climbed  a  neighboring  hill  for  a  good  out- 
look upon  the  surrounding  country.  It  was  a  fair 
sample  of  the  l)etter  parts  of  agricultural  China. 
Within  a  radius  of  three  miles  we  counted  eighty- 
three  villages.  Many  of  them  were  not  over  from  a 
half  a  mile  to  a  mile  apart.  The  accompanying  mis- 
sionary, from  personal  acquaintance  with  not  a  few  of 
those  villages,  estimated  their  average  population  at  600. 
That  would  make  50,000  people  nearly,  for  a  country 
population  within  a  circle  whose  diameter  is  six,  certain- 
ly not  to  exceed  eight,  miles.  Now  let  us  carry  this 
impression,  from  a  country  where  all  is  conjecture,  for 
comparison  to  India,  where,  at  least  in  that  part  under 
immediate  British  control,  the  census  reports  are  very  full 
and  accurate.  There  are  in  the  three  Presidencies,  ac- 
cording to  the  last  returns,  238,830,958.  This  does  not 
include  Ceylon,  Burmah,  Nepaul  and  Bhotan,  l)ut  only 


TEEMING    MILLIONS.  141 

the  Bengal,  Madras  and  Bombay  Presidencies.  The  most 
densely  populated  portion  of  India  is  the  valley  of  the 
Ganges ;  and  of  that  valley,  outside  the  cities,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Patna,  the  centre  of  the  opium-poppy 
culture.  But  we  did  not  even  here  receive  such  impres- 
sion of  overflowing  population  as  upon  that  Chinese  hill 
in  Eastern  Kwang-tung.  Travellers  often  are  deceived 
by  the  sparsely  settled  appearance  along  the  sea-coasts 
and  river-banks.  The  vast  majorit}'-  of  the  people  have 
little  if  any  use  for  exporting  and  importing  facilities, 
being  engaged  with  their  small  plats  of  ground  simply  in 
the  struggle  for  bare  existence.  The  bewilderingly  ex- 
tended interior  must  be  explored,  far  aAvay  from  all 
the  ordinary  avenues  of  travel  and  commerce,  before 
the  enormous  population  of  China  can  be  appreciated. 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  such  a  vast  aggregation  of 
human  beings,  nearl}^  all  of  one  race,  having  almost 
the  same  manners  and  customs  everywhere,  and, 
though  speaking  a  variety  of  dialects,  having  but  one 
Avritten  language  and  literature.  Here  are  a  third  more 
people  than  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe  together ; 
twice  as  many  as  in  the  four  continents  of  North  and 
South  America,  Africa  and  Oceanica.  Only  one-tenth 
of  them  are  reached  by  the  Gospel,  and  thirty-three 
thousand  of  the  Chinese  are  passing  away  from  time 
into  eternity  every  day.  If  the  population  of  this  im- 
mense empire  should  join  hands  singly  in  an  unbroken 
line,  they  would  reach  ten  times  around  our  world. 
Let  them  march  before  us  as  an  army  at  the  rate  of 
thirty  miles  a  day,  and  the  days  will  become  weeks, 
and  the  weeks  months,  and  the  months  years,  yes, 
twenty-three  long  years  must  pass,  before  the  tramp, 
tramp,  of  the  martial  host  is  ended.  One-third  nearly 
of  all  the  human  race  is  Chinese  ;  a  third  of  all  for  whom 
Christ  died,  and  for  whom  the  Gospel  is  to  ]:>e  pro- 
claimed ;  a  third  of  all  in  whose  keeping  is  wrapt  up 
the  future  of  our  world ;  a  third  of  all  of  our  fallen 
race,  who  are  to  appear  at  the  last  great  day  before 
the  judgment  seat  of  Almighty  God. 

Most  of  the  population  of  China  inhabit  the  eighteen 


142  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

provinces,  which  correspond  to  the  states  of  the  American 
Union.  Indeed  there  is  much  more  similarity  between 
the  geography  of  the  great  empire  and  that  of  the  great 
repubhc.  Outside  the  provinces  or  states  China  has  its 
sparsely  populated  territories  of  Manchu  and  Mongol 
Tartary,  Thibet,  Corea,  Cochin  China,  and  other  regions 
of  Central  Asia,  all  sustaining  feudal  relations  of  more 
or  less  strength  with  the  head  of  imperial  power  at 
Peking.  The  Pacific  sea-coast  of  China  presents  in 
contour  striking  resemblances  to  the  Atlantic  sea-coast 
of  America.  In  both  alike  the  most  robust  of  the  pop- 
ulations are  from  the  north.  In  that  section  where  cot- 
ton is  king  in  the  one,  rice  is  king  in  the  other.  What 
the  Mississippi  is  to  the  American  Union,  the  Yang- 
tse  is  to  the  union  of  the  Chinese  empke.  Both  have 
their  capitals  awkwardly  located.  Both  are  noted  for 
their  extremes  of  temperature.  China's  coast  line, 
however,  exceeds  that  of  the  Republic  on  its  eastern 
shores  by  several  hundred  miles.  There  are  many  ex- 
cellent harbors  below  the  mouth  of  the  Yang-tse,  and 
no  large  country  in  the  world  is  so  well  furnished  with 
an  interior  system  of  natural  and  artificial  water  com- 
munication. The  greatest  canal  ever  constructed  con- 
nects Hang-chow,  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  south-west 
from  Shanghai,  with  Peking  seven  hundred  miles  dis- 
tant. There  are  parts  of  it  much  more  costly  and  artis- 
tic in  construction  than  any  I  have  seen  upon  either  the 
Erie  canal  of  New  York,  or  the  Buckingham  canal  of 
the  Madras  Presidency,  India. 

China  is  as  remarkable  for  its  antiquity  as  for  the 
extent  of  its  country  and  the  vastness  of  its  population. 
Native  historians  claim  to  go  back  to  twelve  centuries 
before  Christ,  Avithin  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of 
the  death  of  Moses  and  the  entrance  of  Israel  into 
Canaan,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  David 
reigned  and  extended  his  kingdom  from  Egypt  to  the 
Euphrates.  But  the  documentary^  history  of  China 
hardly  reaches  beyond  the  eighth  century  liefore  Christ ; 
yet  that  carries  us  back  of  Nebuchadnezzar  and 
Babylon,    back  of  Sennacherib  and  Nineveh,  back  of 


HOARY    ANTIQUITY.  143 

Josiah  and  Manasseh,  close  up  to  the  period  of  the 
founding  of  Syracuse  and  Kome,  and  of  the  first 
Olympiad.  At  some  time  then,  when  perhaps  Shal- 
maneser  was  besieging  Samaria,  or  Sargon  was  peopling 
the  land  of  Israel  with  Assyrian  colonists,  the  first 
dynasty  under  the  family  of  Chow  was  established  in 
China.  This  lasted  till  about  250  B.  C.  The  first 
king  of  the  earlier  times  is  said  to  be  buried  near  Zoa- 
hying,  or  Shau-king,  a  hundred  miles  west  of  Ningpo. 
I  visited  the  romantic  place,  and  to  say  the  least  it  is 
certainly  deserving  of  a  royal  tomb.  His  traditional 
name  w^as  Yu,  of  the  famous  Hia  dynasty,  who  stayed 
the  northern-  deluge  and  formed  a  nation  out  of  the 
various  races.  Between  him,  whose  sayings  Confucius  is 
claimed  to  have  edited,  and  the  above  reliable  period 
of  documentary  history  tradition  places  another  cele- 
brated dynasty  —  that  of  Shang.  It  was  during  the 
reign  of  the  Chow  family  that  Confucius  was  born,  551 
B.  C,  and  also  Mencius,  372  B.  C,  the  two  great 
practical  philosophers  Avho  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
social  and  political  life  of  China.  To  them,  more  than 
to  any  others,  are  due  l^oth  the  vitality  and  reserve  of 
the  nation.  The  Tsin  d}'nasty  succeeded,  lasting  only 
about  forty-six  years,  yet  memorable  because  of  the 
erection  of  the  Great  Wall,  and  vain  though  gigantic 
efforts  to  extinguish  the  Confucian  philosophers  and  their 
cherished  literature.  The  Han  family  then  came  into 
power,  which  it  retained  for  four  hundred  and  twenty- 
six  years,  to  220  A.  D.  One  of  its  emperors,  at  about 
the  commencement  of  the  .  Christian  era,  introduced 
Buddhism  from  India.  This  also  was  the  first  dynasty 
w^hich  adopted  Confucianism  as  the  state  religion.  Of 
the  other  two  dynasties  l)efore  foreign  domination  the 
T'ang  (A.  D.  608-905)  and  the  Sung  (A.  D.  960-1278), 
General  Lake  of  England  says  :  "  The  poets,  scholars, 
and  philosophers  are  still  models  of  tastes  and  scientific 
orthodoxy ;  and  the  expositors  of  the  Confucian  text 
under  the  Sung  have  ever  since  exercised  a  powerful 
influence  in  favor  of  a  materalistic  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse." Kublai,  the  Mongol,  now  overran  China,  but  his 


144  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

dynasty  lasted  only  sixty  years,  giving  place  to  the  native 
Ming  family,  which  in  turn,  after  three  hundred  years, 
fell,  in  A.  D.  1644,  before  anothr  foreign  dynasty, — 
that  established  by  the  present  reigning  Manchu  family 
of  Tscing.  In  1842  war  arose  with  England  on  account 
of  the  opium  trade,  which  resulted  in  the  Chinese  paying 
an  indemnity  of  over  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
million  of  dollars,  ceding  Hong  Kong  to  the  Brit- 
ish, and  opening  to  foreigners  the  ports  of  Shanghai, 
Ningpo,  Fu-chow,  Amoy,  and  Canton.  By  the  treaty 
of  Tientsin  in  1858  and  the  convention  of  Peking  in 
1860,  residence  in  the  capital  and  freedom  to  travel 
throughout  the  empire  were  secured,  and  the  following 
other  ports  were  opened  to  foreign  commerce,  —  New- 
chAvang,  Tien-tsin,  Chefoo,  Han-Kow,  Kiu-Kiang,  Chin- 
kiang,  Taiwan,  Takao,  and  Swatow.  There  have  also 
since  been  opened  Pak-hoi,  Wan-chow,  Wuhu,  and 
Ichang.  These,  including  Peking  and  Hong  Kong, 
make  twenty  important  centres,  for  evangelization  as 
well  as  commercial  enterprise.,  where  there  are  all  needed 
treaty  protections.  Elsewhere  missionaries  do  labor 
and  acquire  titles  to  property,  but  the  treaty  ports  are 
the  places  where  as  yet  the  most  reliable  efforts  can  be 
made  to  establish  the  beginnings  of  christian  institutions. 
On  a  large  and  comfortable  steamer  of  the  Mitsu 
Bishi  line,  we  have  come  three  days  from  the  shores  of 
Japan,  and  have  evidently  for  hours  been  approaching 
the  great  Asiatic  continent,  though  as  yet  we  see  noth- 
ing of  its  shores.  The  water  is  so  muddy.  It  is  the 
Yang-tse  Kiang  spreading  like  a  fan  far  out  at  sea. 
Occasionally  a  junk  now  begins  to  make  its  appear- 
ance ;  and  such  an  appearance  !  It  looks  like  a  small 
lumber-yard  and  a  large  junk-shop  afloat.  They  all 
have  huge  eyes  painted  upon  the  bow,  for  ''if  have 
no  eyes,  how  can  see?"  It  is  wonderful  what  rapid 
progress  they  make  through  the  water.  The  Chinese 
believe  it  is  because  they  burn  so  many  fire-crackers 
before  the}-  start  upon  every  voyage  ;  liut  to  us  it  is 
very  evident  the  reason  is  surprising  skill  in  the  rig- 
ging and  management  of  their  sails.     Even  such  awk- 


ROUND    THE    WORLD    LETTERS.  145 

ward,  untidy,  ridiculously  appearing  craft,  with  such 
po\ver  to  catch  the  breeze  and  shift  ahiiost  instantane- 
ously, are  dangerous  ocean  toys  in  the  hands  of  pirates, 
as  foreigners  have  often  learned.  All  Imt  two  of  the 
nineteen  steamships,  with  which  we  voyaged  upon  the 
waters  of  China,  were  well  provided  with  guns  and 
swords  for  the  use  of  the  cabin  passengers,  in  repelling 
any  possible  attack  from  Chinese  pirates.  The  only 
shots,  however,  with  which  I  was  privileged,  were  at 
two  enormous  rats,  seeking,  no  doubt,  to  escape  from 
that,  to  them,  inhospitable  country.  Killed  them  both 
—  could  hardly  help  it  at  ten  feet.  And  then,  be 
assured,  whatever  was  not  blown  away  w^as  not  allowed 
to  waste.  The  Chinese  taste  may  be  correct  after  all — 
who  knows  ?  Some  European  or  American  had  to  try 
the  first  frog,  the  first  tomato,  the  first  mushroom. 

When  we  reached  Shanghai,  both  foreigners  and 
natives  were  on  the  "  qui  vive  "  over  the  daily-expected 
arrival  of  General  Grant.  But  for  a  full  account  of  his 
reception  here,  as  also  subsequently  at  Chefoo  in  the 
North,  I  must  refer  the  reader  to  Mrs.  Bainbridge's 
''Eound  the  World  Letters."  Shanghai  cannot  fall  far 
short  of  a  million  of  population.  The  old  native  city 
within  the  walls  has  not  probably  over  half  of  this 
number.  The  foreign  settlement,  l^eautifully  located 
and  i)uilt  up  along  the  river  below,  has  not  to  exceed 
five  thousand ;  but  around  it  a  vast  native  population 
has  swarmed  like  bees  around  their  hive.  The  foreign- 
ers are  entirely  outside  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Chinese 
government,  being,  according  to  treaty,  subject  only  to 
their  own  several  consulates  and  local  regulations.  In 
this  neighborhood,  during  the  Taiping  rebellion,  an 
episode  illustrated  the  relative  martial  qualities  of 
Mongolians  and  Caucasians.  An  army  of  thirty-five 
thousand  of  the  rebels  came  down  upon  the  native 
walled  city  of  Shanghai.  The  foreign  settlement,  then 
not  nmstering  over  six  hundred  men,  all  told,  in  its 
home  guard  militia,  sent  official  word  to  the  rebel  com- 
mander, that,  while  this  was  no  difficulty  of  theirs,  and 
they  proposed  to  remain  neutral,  they  could  not  allow 


146  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

the  fighting  to  take  place  withm  certain  limits  of  their 
homes.  The  Avarning  was  not  heeded,  and  the  six 
hundred  scattered  the  great  army  like  chaff  before  the 
wind. 

The  average  Chinese  estimate  of  the  European  or 
American  foreigner  is  very  curious.  In  fighting  he  has 
no  caution,  but  is  simply  the  most  tenacious  of  all  fero- 
cious animals.  They  look  at  the  English  barbarian  as 
a  crowd  at  a  menagerie  would  at  a  caged  tiger.  They 
think  that  the  bars  which  restrain  us  are  simply  our 
mutual  jealousies.  However  the  time  is  rapidly  passing 
away,  if  it  has  not  already,  when  a  good  regiment  of 
European  troops,  thoroughly  equipped,  could  march 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  China  at  pleasure. 
Unfortunately,  or  perhaps  fortunately,  they  learned  at 
the  first  battle  of  the  Taku  forts  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Pei-ho  river  that,  with  overwhelming  numbers,  and 
behind  earth  embankments,  they  could  repel  attack. 
They  are  brave  enough  when  they  think  there  is  any 
hope.  No  people  in  the  world  are  less  afraid  of  death. 
In  any  city  of  the  empire,  for  one  thousand  dollars,  a 
political  prisoner  or  criminal,  under  sentence  of  death, 
can  hire  a  substitute,  if  allowed,  to  take  his  place  under 
the  executioner's  sword.  This  w^as  done  in  scores  of 
instances  in  connection  with  the  punishments  inflicted 
by  the  British  upon  Canton  for  its  treachery.  Both  at 
Shanghai  and  at  Fu-chow  I  saw  well-equipped  arsenals, 
turning  out  immense  quantities  of  the  most  approved 
foreign  guns.  Their  imitation  of  the  Henry-Martini 
rifle  is  somewhat  imperfect,  but  their  copying  of  the 
Armstrong  pattern  of  cannon  is  remarkably  good. 
These  arsenals  are  turning  out  also  an  immense  amount 
of  ammunition.  For  defensive  purposes  much  wisdom 
has  been  shown  in  the  late  purchase  of  small  gunboats 
of  great  strength,  and  carrying  only  one  or  two  cannon 
of  the  heaviest  calibre.  Their  eff'orts  to  build  their  own 
have  thus  far  proved  ridiculous  failures.  I  saw  one  of 
them  at  Fu-chow,  and  no  wonder  the  authorities  can 
neither  hire,  c;oax  nor  force  anyl:)ody  to  go  to  sea  in  her. 
Those  lately-purchased  gunboats,  however,  will  answer 


CHINESE    ESTIMATE    OF   FOREIGNERS.  147 

for  the  present ;  yet  only  it  is  probable  for  a  little  while, 
as  they  must  rapidly  go  to  ruin,  unless  the  Chinese 
soon  learn  how  to  take  better  care  of  the  complicated 
and  delicate  machinery  of  foreign  manufacture.  It  was 
really  painful,  when  visiting  the  arsenal  at  Shanghai,  to 
see  so  much  beautifully  and  skilfully  constructed  ma- 
chinery spoiling  more  from  ignorance  and  neglect  than 
from  the  proper  wear  and  tear.  The  Japanese  under- 
stand how  to  take  care  of  foreign  machinery  a  great 
deal  better,  as  I  could  easily  see  in  their  mint  at  Osaka, 
in  their  paper  manufactory  five  miles  north  of  Tokio, 
and  in  their  railway  shops  at  Kobe. 

A  Chinaman  believes  that  the  foreigner  is  his  inferior 
in  every  respect,  except  in  the  construction  of  machinery 
and  in  the  use  of  steam.  But,  then,  these  are  only 
gross  material  excellencies.  True  manhood  and  supe- 
riority are  to  be  otherwise  judged.  Where  in  the  world 
has  statesmanship  been  so  successful  in  giving  perma- 
nency to  political  institutions?  They  claim  that  no 
practical  philosophers  have  ever  compared  with  Confu- 
cius and  Mencius  for  range  of  knowledge  and  depth  of 
wisdom.  They  have  elaborated  a  system  of  education, 
which  seems  to  them  far  in  advance  of  other  nations. 
Their  civil  service  they  consider  perfect  as  far  as  peo- 
ple will  act  honestly  —  but,  ah,  there  is  the  rub.  They 
have  to  manage  the  affairs  of  nearly  a  third  of  the 
human  race,  but  even  among  christian  nations  they 
hear  of  vastly  more  bloodshed  and  crime  than  among 
their  own  populations.  In  all  the  twenty-eight  cen- 
turies they  claim  of  history,  they  say  they  never  con- 
ceived of  an  act  so  cruel  and  so  enormously  wicked  as 
that  of  forcing  the  deadly  opium  traffic  upon  an  unwill- 
ing people.  In  immorality  they  have  never  found  the 
most  abandoned  of  their  own  people  so  lacking  in  self- 
restraint,  so  brutally  aggressive,  and  so  lost  to  all  sense 
of  decency  and  social  propriety  as  the  majority  of  for- 
eigners with  whom  they  have  thus  far  become  acquainted. 
They  tell  us  they  know  that  most  of  the  foreigners 
among  them  keep  their  native  mistresses ;  that  when- 
ever a  ship  comes  in  there  is  a  perfect  avalanche  of 


148  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

assault  upon  the  weak  of  their  younger  female  popula- 
tion ;  and  not  one  Chinaman  in  ten  has  any  doubt  that 
the  single  women  missionaries  are  the  mistresses  of  the 
stations.  No  wonder  Prince  Kung  said  to  Sir  Thomas 
Wade,  upon  one  occasion  of  this  British  minister's 
return  to  his  own  country,  ''I  wish  you  would  take 
with  you  both  your  opium  and  your  missionaries."  It 
is  very  wise  to  remember  that  the  Chinese  and  other 
unevangelized  people  have  a  very  different  idea  of  us, 
from  that  we  entertain  of  ourselves.  And  surely  for 
the  mistake  they  are  not  the  most  to  blame. 

Our  visit  to  China  of  five  months  included  eight  dif- 
ferent places,  scattered  along  its  immense  coast ;  and 
from  seven  of  these  treaty  ports  we  took  more  or  less 
extended  tours  into  the  interior.  The  first  and  longest 
journey  through  the  provinces  of  Kiang-su,  Che-kiang, 
Ngan-hwei,  Kiang-si,  and  Hu-peh,  I  made  mostly  alone, 
my  family  preceding  me  to  the  North,  there  to  await  at 
the  sanitarium  of  Chefoo.  Missionaries  accompanied 
me  from  Ningpo  to  Zao-hying,  and  thence  to  Hang- 
chow  and  Su-chow.  But  from  there  I  ventured  on  for 
several  days  without  any  interpreter  to  Cbing-Kiang 
upon  the  Yang-tse.  Travelling  in  the  interior  seems  to 
be  very  safe.  T^lany  times  I  was  saluted  with  the  un- 
complimentar}^  "  Fan-qui-tsu  !  "  ''  Foreign  devil  !  "  but 
no  one  ever  molested  me,  or  ever  made  the  slightest 
hostile  advance,  except  in  a  city  to  the  north  of  Peking, 
where  the  hotel-keeper  seized  my  horse's  bridle  to  at- 
tempt an  unsuccessful  extortion.  There  was  never 
stolen  from  me  a  single  article  of  clothing,  although 
frequently  I  had  to  leave  all  my  kit  in  the  hands  of 
stranger  heathen  Chinese,  and  there  was  scarcely  a 
night  when  their  cunning  fingers  could  not  have  ab- 
stracted something.  And  this  when  I  was  paying  each 
of  my  crew  of  six  boatmen  average  wages  of  not  over 
twenty-five  cents  a  day  !  Nor  a\  here  I  hired  them  was 
there  any  foieign  consular  power  for  intimidation  in  the 
interest  of  honesty.  Though  ashamed  to  acknowledge 
it  as  a  citizen  of  one  of  the  nominally  Christian  coun- 
tries, it  is  a  fact  that  during  a  year  and  three-quarters, 


WHILE    THE    NOVELTY    LASTS.  149 

including  both  visits,  almost  all  over  Asia,  I  never  lost 
one  dollar's  worth  of  goods ;  but  that  the  stealings  out 
of  my  baggage  in  Europe  and  Great  Britain  in  less  than 
a  year  amounted  to  several  hundred  dollars.  I  did 
forward  from  Lucknow  and  Kurrachee,  India,  a  valu- 
able collection  of  photographs,  which  have  never  turned 
up,  but  then  they  were  not  native  hands  to  which  they 
were  intrusted. 

The  way  the  owner  of  my  boat  from  Hang-chow  to 
Ching-kiang  —  two  hundred  miles — fulfilled  his -con- 
tract was  very  amusing.  For  one  hundred  and  iifty 
miles  previously  I  had  tried  the  more  rapid  feet-oared 
sculls,  a  long  narrow  shallow  boat,  propelled  by  one 
man,  who,  seated  at  the  stern,  steers  with  his  hands  and 
works  the  oar  AvMth  his  feet.  But  the  passenger  has  to 
lie  down  almost  all  the  time  on  his  back,  and  not  rise 
nor  stir  without  the  greatest  caution  lest  there  be  a  cap- 
size. I  had  tried  this  long  enough  to  get  a  pretty  good 
idea  of  missionary  experience  in  that  line,  and  resolved 
thereafter  to  luxuriate  a  little  more,  and  at  least  be  pro- 
vided with  boat  accommodations  that  would  stand  the 
strain  of  a  sneeze  or  a  cough.  I  tell  you,  my  reader, 
there  is  a  world  of  difference  between  missionary  ac- 
commodations for  residence  and  travel,  when  used 
for  a  short  visit  or  upon  a  few  hours'  excursion, 
and  then,  on  the  other  hand,  when  the  novelty  is 
all  worn  away,  and  the  pressure  is  felt  of  the  dull 
monotony,  of  the  contrasts  with  the  conveniences  in  the 
home  land,  and  of  the  continually  necessitated  econo- 
mies. I  had  often  looked,  as  probably  a  majority  of 
christians  do,  at  the  pictures  of  missionary  life,  their 
summer-like  houses  with  large  windows  and  broad 
piazzas,  their  compounds  filled  with  tropical  vegetation, 
their  many  servants  costing  nothing  hardly  for  wages 
or  food,  their  horses  and  elephants  to  ride,  their  boats  so 
quaint  with  which  to  sail  or  paddle  or  pole  or  tow  along 
the  rivers  and  creeks  and  canals ;  and  I  said,  "Oh,  how 
nice  it  must  be  !  "  Well,  it  is  all  very  novel ;  and,  just 
while  the  novelty  lasts,  it  is  quite  delightful ;  but  when 
that  is  gone  it  is  simply  execrable,  and  only  to  be  en- 


150  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

dured  from  stern  business  necessity  or  from  the  love  of 
Christ  and  perishing-  souls.  I  resolved  to  stay  long 
enough  in  heathen  lands  this  time  to  get  that  other  taste 
—  the  disagreeable  one,  and  I  did.  Indeed  travel  with 
the  ordinary  speed  in  Asia,  Africa  and  the  isles  of  the 
sea  is  one  thing,  but  residence  is  another,  and  rather 
than  live  in  oriental  palaces  and  travel  with  all  the 
pageantry  of  oriental  kings,  give  me  the  most  humble 
cottage  in  America,  and  a  chance  to  even  foot  it  on  an 
American  highway.  But  that  boatman  ;  in  his  contract 
he  agreed  to  furnish,  including  himself  as  captain,  six 
men.  We  started  from  Ilans^-chow  for  Su-chow, 
those  two  great  cities,  the  former  most  beautifully 
situated ;  concerning  which  the  Chinese  all  over  the 
country  have  this  proverb  :  '^  Above  is  heaven,  below  is 
Hang-chow  and  Su-chow."  But  where  are  all  my  crew? 
I  busy  myself  within  my  inner  cabin,  laying  out  things 
upon  table  and  bed  for  the  journey,  hearing  occasionally 
family  discussions  going  on  in  that  unknown  tongue 
upon  the  covered  stern-deck.  But  over  my  door  was 
the  Chinese  familiar  hieroglyphic  for  "  happiness,"  or  "  be 
happy ; "  and  I  concluded  to  let  well  enough  alone,  as 
we  were  moving  along  right  smart.  But  finally  I  went 
out  to  have  a  roll-call  of  the  six  sailors  of  the  contract. 
Then  the  captain  blandly  smiled,  kow-tow'd  most  po- 
litely after  an  extra  jerk  at  the  rudder  oar,  then  pointed 
to  himself  as  one,  to  his  hired  man  as  the  second,  to  his 
two  boys,  respectively  ten  and  fourteen,  as  two  more, 
and  then  to  his  wife  and  the  infant  she  was  nursing  as 
the  other  two;  four  fingers,  two  fingers  —  six;  "all 
right,  heap  good,  chow  chow  ! " 

At  Hang-chow  I  visited  the  greatest  medical  estab- 
lishment of  the  empire,  where  the  healing  efficacy  of  the 
various  nostrums  is  derived  from  the  slaughter  of  deer, 
all  depending  upon  bringing  the  death  of  the  animal  and 
the  mixture  of  the  medicine  as  near  together  as  pos- 
sible, so  as  to  catch  and  convey  the  agile  vitality  to  the 
sick  and  the  feeble.  Through  the  country  the  bridges 
over  the  canals,  particularly  in  those  portions  laid  waste 
by  the  Taiping  rebellion,  surprised  me  with  their  solidity 


PEKING    AND    SHAN-TUNG.  151 

and  beauty  of  construction.  It  would  be  impossible  to 
find  a  country  in  the  world  more  admirably  supplied  by 
nature  with  water  facilities  for  intercommunication  than 
the  province  of  Kiang-si,  of  which  Kiu-kiang,  four 
hundred  miles  up  the  Yang-tse,  is  the  treaty  port.  At 
the  junction  of  the  Han  river  with  the  Yang-tse,  six 
hundred  miles  into  the  interior  from  Shanghai,  is  a  most 
interesting  centre  of  dense  population.  The  three  cities 
form  really  one  vast  metropolis  for  central  China,  Han- 
kow upon  the  north  with  its  800,000,  Wu-chang  upon 
the  south  with  its  500,000,  and  Han-Yan  upon  the 
west  with  perhaps  100,000  more.  There  are  prob- 
ably a  hundred  thousand  in  addition  living  in  the 
swarms  of  boats,  which  belong  to  this  locality,  and  when 
here  almost  pack  the  less  rapid  Han  river  along  up  for 
miles.  This  would  make  a  million  and  a  half  of  popula- 
tion at  this  point.  There  appears  to  be  considerable 
wealth  in  Han-kow  among  the  natives.  Their  five- 
miles-long  principal  business  street  has  many  stores  of 
considerable  pretensions.  A  large  business  is  carried 
on  here  in  preparation  of  brick  tea,  or  tea  steamed 
and  pressed  into  the  shape  of  bricks  for  Eussian  con- 
sumption. 

A  month's  tour  to  Peking  and  the  Great  Wall  gave  us 
glimpses  into  a  number  of  most  important  mission 
stations,  as  well  as  opportunity  to  see  the  strange 
capital,  to  study  China's  imperial  and  religious  systems 
at  their  head,  and  to  inspect  by  far  the  most  gigantic 
work  of  masonry  ever  undertaken  by  men.  We 
were  greatly  indebted  for  hospitalities  and  a  large 
variety  of  facilities  to  our  American  Minister  George 
H.  Seward,  to  Dr.  Martin,  president  of  the  Imperial 
University,  and  to  Eev.  Dr.  Blodget  of  the  American 
Board.  A  subsequent  tour  into  the  interior  of  the 
Shan-tung  province  from  Chefoo  brought  us  to  Tung- 
chow-fu,  one  of  the  loneliest  cities  of  the  world,  but 
where  a  noble  band  of  American  Presbyterians  north, 
and  southern  Baptists  are  doing  a  very  successful  mis- 
sionary work.  The  natives  of  Shang-tung  impressed 
me  as  more  stalwart  and  capable  than  those  in  almost  all 
other  parts  of  China. 


152  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

Our  tours  into  the  Fuh-kien  province  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Fu-chow  and  Amoy  gave  us  views  of  much 
more  beautiful  country  than  at  the  north.  The  scenery 
of  rugged  mountains  and  luxuriant  valleys  corresponds 
more  with  the  upper  Yang-tse-kiang.  Fu-chow  has  a 
million  population.  One  of  its  wealthy  Chinese  mer- 
chants, Ah-Hok,  very  hospitably  entertained  us  to  a 
simple  lunch.  He  was  very  sorry  we  were  not  to 
linger  long  enough  for  him  to  prepare  for  us  a  regular 
dinner.  It  was  a  simple  lunch,  yet  it  required  over 
three  hours  to  go  through  the  thirty  courses.  We  were 
all  sea-sick  the  next  day  on  account  of  the  weather. 
From  Swatow  a  seventy-five  miles'  journey  into  the 
northeastern  part  of  Kwang-tung  enabled  us  to  form 
very  pleasing  acquaintances  among  the  natives,  to  esti- 
mate still  more  highly  the  density  and  industry  of  the 
population,  and  to  see  as  clearly  as  anywhere  else  in  all 
the  foreign  mission  field  the  advantages  which  wise 
methods  give  to  zealous  missionary  labor.  The  familiar 
journey  from  Hong-Kong  to  Canton,  and  thence  on  up 
a  little  farther  into  the  interior  b}^  steam  launch,  gave  us 
our  parting  survey  of  "  the  ^liddle  Kingdom."  There 
is  a  perfect  swarm  of  cities  in  that  vicinity.  Canton  is 
the  Paris  of  China.  Its  shops  are  the  most  tempting  of 
any  of  the  twenty-eight  great  walled  cities  we  have 
visited. 


BOARD   OF   CENSORS.  153 


CHAPTER  X. 

CHINA,    POLITICALLY    AND    SOCIALLY. 

|HE  government  of  China  is  really  a  con- 
stitutional monarchy,  but  the  constitution 
is  unwritten.  It  consists  of  a  vast  mass 
of  precedents,  which  have  accumulated 
through  many  centuries,  and  are  held  in  al- 
most as  much  reverence  as  the  correspond- 
ing:  law\s  in  Eno-land.  Amono:  the  various 
Boards  which  constitute  the  heads  of  government  at 
Peking  next  to  the  Emperor,  is  one  called  the  Board  of 
Censors,  whose  special  business  it  is  to  review  all  the 
acts  of  the  Imperial  Administration  in  the  light  of 
voluminous  precedents.  They  have  the  right  of  scold- 
ing as  much  as  they  please  in  the  Court  Journal^  until 
very  recently  the  only  newspaper  of  China  in  its  own 
language.  There  are  now  two  other  newspapers  in 
Chinese ;  but  w^hat  a  contrast  with  elapan,  whose  list 
includes  forty-five  dailies  and  one  hundred  and  seventy 
weeklies  and  monthlies,  one  of  the  dailies  alone  —  the 
Nichi-Nichi- Shinhiin  of  Tokio,  having  a  circulation  of 
twelve  to  fifteen  thousand  !  These  Censors  are  supposed 
to  occupy  a  very  independent  position,  and  yet  often 
there  is  considerable  risk  in  the  full  exercise  of  their 
liberty.  Particularly  if  Emperors  or  regents  find  some 
cherished  and  perhaps  vital  line  of  personal  policy  de- 
clared unconstitutional,  the  Censors  will  find  themselves 
in  danger  of  poison  or  assassination.  A  late  incident, 
where  imperial  vengeance  was  thwarted  by  suicide,  will 
illustrate  this,  as  also  the  existence  of  real  Chinese 
patriotism  and  the  present  condition  and  prospects  of 
the  sovereign  power. 


154  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

One  woman  is  at  the  head  of  the  Chinese  government 
to-day,  the  mother-in-law  of  the  former  emperor.  The 
present  emperor,  son  of  the  seventh  prince  of  the 
blood,  is  a  minor,  about  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  there- 
fore under  the  circumstances  custom  establishes  this 
woman  in  the  regency.  She  is,  however,  very  loath  to 
part  with  her  sovereign  power  at  the  not  far-off  majority 
of  the  emperor.  So,  with  an  astuteness  worthy  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  she  and  the  late  joint  regent,  the 
mother  of  the  late  emperor,  proposed  or  adopted  the 
theory,  that  their  present  ro^^al  charge  can  only  be  the 
father  of  the  real  emperor.  The  late  emperor  left  no 
son.  They  had  to  pick  up  the  royal  line  way  along- 
down  at  a  great  distance  from  the  throne.  Therefore 
two  minorities  under  the  same  regency  are  required  to 
satisfy  the  demands  of  a  properly  dignified  state  policy. 
Prince  Kung,  who  was  the  right-hand  man  of  these 
shrewd  but  overreaching  women,  was  willing  to  play 
into  their  hands,  as  it  secures  him  also  permanent  pos- 
session of  power.  So  also  are  apparently  most  of  the 
chiefs  or  the  several  heads  of  the  Boards,  all  of  whom, 
with  the  Prince,  it  was  our  pleasure  to  see  during  the 
week  we  were  guests  at  the  American  Legation.  This 
unconstitutional  innovation,  however,  could  not  escape 
the  attention  of  the  Censors ;  and  one  of  them  was 
brave  and  patriotic  enough  to  formally  protest  against 
this  new  policy,  and  to  publish  his  protest.  The 
heroic  statesman  had  counted  upon  too  strong  and  bitter 
opposition  to  his  faithful  discharge  of  national  duty  for 
any  chance  of  his  living  through  it,  so  immediately  upon 
signing  the  protest  he  committed  suicide. 

Li-Huno^-Chans:  is  bidino^  his  time.  Not  more  am- 
bitiously  and  cautiously  is  Gambetta  preparing  for  the 
popular  Presidency  of  the  French  Kepublic,  than  is  this 
leading  Chinaman  for  the  restoration  of  a  purely  native 
dynasty,  for  which  he  is  beyond  all  question  the  one 
best  qualified  and  circumstanced  to  take  the  lead.  Both 
these  persons  may  pass  away,  but  there  will  immediately 
step  forward  living  exponents  of  the  same  great  national 
ideas,  that  are  sweeping  forward  with  irresistible  force. 


LI-HUNG-CHANG.  155 

A  more  radical  democracy  than  that  now  represented  in 
the  French  executive  chair,  with  more  pronounced  pur- 
pose for  the  re-union  of  dismembered  provinces,  must 
within  tlie  next  decade  be  placed  at  the  head  of  political 
affairs,  formally  as  well  as  practically.  A  slower,  but 
equally  distinct  and  resistless  current  of  the  popular 
mind  is  moving  along  in  China  to  improve  the  next 
opportunity  for  the  restoration  of  a  native  dynasty. 
The  people  sigh  for  the  times  of  the  Ming  rule. 
They  are  gradually  growing  restless  under  the  thought 
that  five  million  Manchu  Tartars  should  hold  the 
mastery  over  three  hundred  and  ninety-five  millions 
of  native  Chinese.  They  count  the  little  colonies  of 
the  master  race,  sectioned  and  often  walled  off  in 
the  various  more  important  cities  throughout  the 
empire,  and  they  feel  that  it  would  be  a  very  pos- 
sible and  even  easy  task  to  overwhelm  them,  if  only 
under  an  efficient  leader  they  could  combine  for  the 
purpose,  and  carry  it  out  simultaneously. 

For  that  leader  the  eyes  of  the  people  are  turn- 
ing to-day  to  Li-Hung-Chang,  the  viceroy  of  Chili, 
or  Peh-chi-li,  in  which  is  located  the  national  capi- 
tal. His  seat,  however,  is  half  of  the  year  at  Tien- 
tsin, and  the  other  half  of  the  year  at  Pauting-fu. 
This  arrangement  is  doubtless  gratifying  to  all  around 
concerned.  The  Tartar  Court  does  not  want  much  of 
him  at  Peking,  still  he  is  too  powerful  to  be  degraded, 
and  he  is  so  cautious  and  so  continually  surrounded 
with  powerful  guards  that  they  do  not  see  their  way  to 
his  destruction.  When  I  saw  him  in  the  streets  of 
Tien-tsin,  he  had  a  whole  battalion  of  soldiers  before, 
behind,  and  on  either  side  of  his  sedan-chair,  all  with 
drawn  swords.  I  have  seen  Prince  Kung  travelling  in 
the  streets  of  Peking  with  only  his  chair-bearers  and 
two  attendants.  Li-Hung-Chang  is  worth  his  many 
millions  of  dollars  ;  is  head  of  the  ''  China  Merchants' 
Steamship  Navigation  Company  ;  "  was  the  commander 
of  the  forces  which  with  foreign  help  overthrew  the 
Tai-ping  rebellion  ;  owns  the  only  telegraph  line  in  the 
country ;  is  the  acknowledged  representative   of  what- 


156  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

ever  enterprise  and  spirit  of  advance  in  civilization 
there  really  exists  throughout  the  land  ;  ])ut  he  is  too 
shrewd  to  leave  his  people  too  far  behind,  wanting  at  no 
distant  day  to  command  them  in  the  great  revolution. 
It  is  known  that  he  is  able  to  rely  upon  the  co-operation 
of  the  Fuh-kien  and  Kwang-tung  viceroys,  and  upon 
a  whole  network  of  other  official  power  throughout 
the  empire.  The  Manchu  Court  dares  not  ignite  the 
magazine.  It  knows  that  the  most  it  can  do  with  the 
revolution  is  to  let  it  alone,  trusting  to  the  national 
characteristic  inertia,  and  diverting  its  own  attention  at 
least  with  its  ovv  n  domestic  affairs  and  Avith  the  enforced 
diplomacy  with  the  hated  foreigners.  The  Manchu 
Court  half  thinks  sometimes  of  war  with  Japan,  or  with 
Russia,  or  even  with  England,  to  change  the  known 
current  of  popular  thought ;  but  there  is  not  enough  of 
energy  or  confidence  to  carry  out  such  political  strategy. 
The  end  is  inevitable  of  the  restoration,  probably  be- 
fore the  close  of  the  present  century,  of  a  purely 
Chinese  dynasty.  And  this  will  be  accompanied,  no 
doubt,  with  a  great  sweeping  away  of  superstitions, 
with  a  decided  advance  along  the  lines  of  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  and  with  an  entrance  of  much  more  cordiality 
into  the  brotherhood  of  the  nations.  It  will  do  for 
China  in  part  at  least  what  the  overthrow  of  the  usurp- 
ing Shogunate  has  done  for  Japan.  History  must 
move  more  slowdy  among  four  hundred  millions  than 
among  thirty-four  millions,  but  it  moves  nevertheless  ; 
and  ere  long  in  China  the  new  forces  which  are  gather- 
ing will  accomplish  their  next  important  task  in  the  in- 
terest of  Christianity  and  civilization. 

To  trace  the  imperial  power  down  to  the  people,  take 
for  example  the  province  of  Che-kiang,  of  which  Hang- 
chow  is  the  capital,  and  which  has  been  considered  the 
"  China  of  the  Chinese."  This  province  is  governed  by 
an  officer  immediately  under  the  viceroy,  who  resides  at 
Fu-chow  and  is  sovereign,  subject  to  the  Emperor,  over 
both  Fuh-kien  and  Che-kiang.  His  council  consists 
of  a  Treasurer,  a  Salt  Collector,  a  Judge,  an  Educa- 
tional Minister,  and  n  Court  Chamberlain  or  Purveyor 


MACHINERY    OF    GOVERNMENT.  157 

of  Silks.  Under  these  are  eleven  Prefects  of  Depart- 
ments —  corresponding  to  American  and  English  coun- 
ties—  below  whom  are  in  tm-n  eighty  Magistrates  of 
Districts,  or  sub-divisions  of  the  Departments.  These 
answer  to  the  townships  into  which  our  counties  are 
divided.  Fu  or  Foo  is  the  Chinese  term  for  department, 
and  Hien  for  district.  Not  only  each  Fu,  but  also  each 
Hien  even,  has  generally  its  w^alled  city.  If  this  propor- 
tion holds  good  throughout  the  eighteen  provinces,  of 
Avhich  Che-kiang  is  the  smallest  in  area,  though  one  of 
the  most  densely  populated,  having  proba])ly  a  popula- 
tion of  twenty-six  millions,  then  we  have  one  thousand 
four  hundred  and  seventy  Availed  cities  throughout  the 
empire,  not  including  the  territories.  If  these  have  an 
average  population  of  one  hundred  thousand,  there 
would  be  one  hundred  and  forty-seven  millions  eight 
hundred  thousand  of  inha])itants  of  the  walled  cities  ;  or 
at  a  more  probable  average  of  sixty-five  thousand  there 
would  be  very  nearly  one  hundred  millions. 

Lying  between  the  extensive  plains  of  the  north  and 
the  more  mountainous  districts  of  Fuh-kien  to  the 
south,  Che-kiang  exhibits  somewhat  of  the  characteris- 
tics of  both,  and  is  the  l)est  sample  province  of  the  whole 
empire.  Indeed,  Hang-chow,  which  is  the  seat  of  the 
provincial  government,  was  for  one  hundred  and  fift}^ 
years  the  capital  of  Southern  China,  during  the  reign  of 
the  Sung  family  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries. 
It  was  at  the  close  of  this  dynasty  that  the  Mongol 
power,  which  had  already  established  itself  at  Peking, 
came  to  sway  its  sovereignty^  over  all  China.  The  well- 
known  traveller,  Marco  Polo,  was  the  Mongol  emper- 
or's envoy  to  Hang-chow  soon  after,  and  in  glowing 
terms  he  describes  the  splendors  of  imperial  Hang- 
chow.  I  saw  many  lingering  evidences  of  the  truth- 
fulness of  his  account.  Crossino-  the  beautiful  lake  that 
lies  to  the  northwest  of  the  city,  a  distance  of  ])etween 
one  and  two  miles,  I  wandered  for  a  delightful  hour 
over  the  ruins  of  the  palaces  of  the  Sung  dynasty.  We 
were  not  allowed  to  use  horses  in  front  of  these  linger- 
ing traces  of  old  imperial  splendor,  belonging  to  a  purely 


158  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

Chinese  dynasty.  Where  their  own  emperors,  before 
the  hated  Tartar's  conquest  and  the  subsequent  Man- 
chu  domination,  used  to  walk  ba(3k  and  forth  from 
palace  to  beautiful  water-bank,  we  must  not  ride,  but 
dismount  and  lead  the  horses.  Such  cherished  senti- 
ments are  to  tell  in  the  future  history  of  the  country. 
Indeed,  I  believe  there  are  those  living  who  will  see  the 
day  when  Hang-chow  will  be  the  capital  of  China.  Its 
situation  is  the  most  charming  of  any  city  in  the  coun- 
try. Its  walls  are  but  a  little  distance  from  the  great 
river  Tsien-tang,  two  miles  wide  at  that  point  and 
opening  out  to  a  width  of  fifteen  miles.  The  bore,  neces- 
sarily incident  to  such  a  funnel-shaped  river,  could  be 
easily  managed  with  sufficient  outlay  of  skill  and  labor. 
A  mountainous  range  stops  short  in  the  western  part  of 
the  city,  furnishing  admirable  sites  for  dwellings,  tem- 
ples and  public  buildings.  Beyond,  to  the  northeast, 
stretches  a  great  and  enormously  productive  plain  to 
Su-chow  and  Shanghai.  This  plain  is  almost  as  well 
provided  with  lakes  and  canals  as  Holland.  The  city, 
of  almost  a  million  population,  is  a  mercantile  centre 
for  all  China,  a  prominent  rally ing-point  for  the  literati, 
and  the  home  of  multitudes  of  the  most  learned  and 
polished  and  wealthy  of  the  empire.  If  Li-Hung- 
Chang,  or  some  other  representative  progressive  China- 
man, becomes  emperor  at  Hang-chow,  it  would  not  be 
loner  before  a  railroad  would  extend  from  Hano^-chow  to 
Shanghai ;  and  also,  as  the  most  paying  prospective  en- 
terprise of  the  East  to-day,  one  from  Canton  up  through 
Hunan,  tapping  the  Yang-tse  at  Han-kow. 

The  principal  productions  of  Che-kiang  are  rice,  tea, 
silk  and  opium.  For  these  the  climate  is  adapted,  for, 
although  the  winter  temperature  ranges  from  10°  to 
20°  above  zero,  yet  during  the  summer  months  the  mer- 
cury rarely  falls  below  90°,  even  in  the  coolest  places 
of  shade  or  home.  Between  Ning-po  and  Shau-hing, 
I  rode  through  the  most  luxuriant  and  extensive  rice- 
fields  I  have  ever  seen.  The  mountainous  districts 
beyond,  to  the  south  and  west,  produce  immense  quan- 
tities of  the  green  tea.     And  the  Hu-chau  department. 


THE    OPIUM    CURSE.  159 

upon  the  great  Lake  Tai-hu,  through  which  partly  I 
travelled  on  the  way  north  to  Su-chow,  is  celebrated  for 
its  quality  and  quantity  of  silk.  Much  tobacco  is 
raised,  which,  however,  is  said  to  be  of  inferior  quality. 
Chinese  smoke  a  great  deal  of  their  time,  but  consume 
comparatively  very  little  of  the  narcotic  weed.  The 
national  pipe  is  so  small  at  its  bulb  that  it  will  hold 
only  enough  for  one  good  whiff  and  two  small  ones.  It 
is  another  one  of  many  admirable  customs  which  Amer- 
icans and  Europeans  might  adopt  from  China.  The 
time  consumed  in  filling,  lighting  and  cleaning  out  would 
reduce  the  evil  immensely  ;  I  think  it  would  discourage 
the  majority  of  our  enterprising  smokers,  and  break  up 
their  dirty  habit  entirely.  But  the  opium-poppy,  also, 
I  saw  here  growing,  as  indeed  in  several  other  provin- 
ces, and  in  such  quantities  as  to  awaken  most  anxious 
reflections. 

The  fond  hope  of  the  christian  philanthropist  is  that, 
before  many  years  longer,  the  public  sentiment  of  Eng- 
land will  require  a  change  of  policy  with  regard  to  the 
Indian  opium  traffic  with  China.  The  whole  question 
of  the  responsibility  has  been  reopened  of  late,  and  ear- 
nest advocates  have  done  their  best  to  clear  Great  Brit- 
ain's record.  Some  officers  of  the  civil  service,  as 
for  example  the  Swatow  consul,  have  even  gone  so  far 
as  to  deny  that  the  use  of  opium  is  deleterious  to  public 
health  and  morals.  But  that  will  not  do  at  all.  It  is 
altogether  too  absurd  to  champion  a  cause  that  is  so 
evidently  destroying  millions  of  lives  annually  in  China, 
that  beyond  controversy  largely  contributes  to  keeping 
the  intellectual  fires  of  the  nation  burning  so  feebly,  and 
that  is  the  unanswerable  argument  in  the  Chinese  mind 
against  welcoming  anything  foreign,  whether  political, 
social,  commercial  or  religious.  The  other  claim  is 
almost  equally  unfounded.  Never  was  responsibility 
for  a  great  crime  more  surely  fastened  upon  a  nation, 
than  this,  of  cursing  China  with  opium,  upon  enlight- 
ened. Christian  England.  The  pleas  in  defense  are 
about  as  shallow  as  any  lawyer  ever  presented  for  his 
guilty  client.     The  world  echoes  the  sentiment  of  China, 


160  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

and  joins  in  the  verdict  of  guiltij  against  the  power 
which  claims  to  be  the  special  champion  of  human  rights 
throughout  the  globe.  The  justice  Britain  did  in  the 
emancipation  of  her  West  India  slaves  was  not  so  great 
as  the  injustice  which  awaits  her  removal  in  the  Orient, 
and  which  English  public  sentiment  is  sure  to  compel 
before  the  close  of  the  present  century.  Not  much 
longer  can  Anglo-Saxon  conscience  stand^  the  load,  nor 
Anglo-Saxon  pride  endure  such  diplomatic  rebukes  as 
that  administered  by  the  late  American  treaty  with 
China. 

But  meanwhile,  alas,  the  rapid  increase  of  the  poppy 
culture  at  home  in  China  is  complicating  the  problem. 
The  province  of  Che-kiang  is  producing  almost  as  much 
opium  as  either  cotton  or  tobacco.  So  tempting  is 
the  market  in  tliis  deadly  drug,  that  immense  fields  of 
this  prett}-  white  flower  —  the  somniferum  of  the  genus 
papaA'er  —  ma}-  be  met  frequentlj'  even  so  ftir  north  as  the 
late  famine-stricken  provinces  of  Shansi  and  Shensi. 
Indeed  here,  as  in  India,  it  may  be  that  we  see  the 
providential  hand  of  God  chastening  nations,  which  have 
thrown  away  their  richest  producing  lands  upon  the 
culture  of  a  poison,  that  beyond  all  others  is  the  most 
seductive,  and  that  with  great  rapidity  and  certainty 
ruins  both  ])ody  and  soul.  It  is  begining  to  be  ques- 
tional )le  whether  China  will  have  the  power  to  eradicate 
the  evil  by  repressive  legislation,  after  Great  Britain 
has  untied  the  hands  she  has  bound  by  her  wars  and 
treaties.  Undoubtedly  the  Chinese  government  has 
had  the  ability,  as  well  as  the  will,  up  to  within  a  fcAV 
years.  A  score  of  years  ago,  had  England  spoken  the 
word,  the  Imperial  edict  would  have  gone  forth,  accom- 
panied with  sufficient  mihtary  force,  and  with  what  is 
of  still  more  consequence,  enough  of  public  sentiment 
among  the  overwhelming  pure  Chinese  populations,  to 
drive  out  the  opium  consumption  from  China  as 
thoroughly  as  Japan  expelled  the  Jesuits.  But  circum- 
stances are  rapidly  changing.  The  production  is  be- 
coming a  vital  part  of  the  economy  of  the  nation,  not 
capable  of  heroic  treatment.     Probablv  Chinese  legis- 


A    DECEPTION    OF   MODERATION.  161 

lation,  when  it  has  opportunity,  will  find  itself  con- 
fronted with  too  great  a  difficulty.  Christianity  must 
be  preparing  to  step  forward  to  the  rescue  of  the  mul- 
titudinous people.  Its  principles  and  resources  of 
power  will  be  needed  to  restore  self-mastery,  to  eradi- 
cate appetite,  and  to  teach  the  way  to  nobler  rest  of 
body  and  of  mind.  The  task  is  not  too  great  for 
Christianity.  The  Almighty  arm,  which  supports  the 
cause  of  evangelization  everywhere,  is  equal,  through 
the  ordinary  means  and  methods  of  grace,  to  the  over- 
throw of  both  intemperance  in  America,  and  opium  in 
China.  Much  as  we  could  wish  it,  the  English  Parlia- 
ment is  not  probably  to  relieve  Christian  Missions  of 
this  vast  responsibility.  It  will  remain  for  us  to  fight 
with  spiritual  weapons.  The  hope  is  that  christians  will 
remain  united  for  the  great  campaign.  It  would  indeed 
be  an  unspeakable  calamity,  if  there  should  be  anything 
like  the  disintegration  of  power  that  is  witnessed  at 
home  in  regard  to  the  temperance  reform.  And  we 
earnestly  pray  God,  that  no  leading  missionary  may 
adopt  and  advocate  the  position,  that  total  abstinence 
from  the  use  of  opium  is  not  the  most  noble  principle 
for  manhood.  It  is  moderation  that  is  the  curse,  for 
it  is  moderation  that  accomplishes  the  ruin.  It  is  by 
the  deception  of  moderation  that  the  deadly  habit  is 
formed,  the  power  of  the  will  broken,  and  the  manhood 
lost.  Intemperance  is  the  deadly  efiect  of  moderation. 
When  the  earnest,  desperate  efibrt  at  moderation  gives 
way  to  the  flood-tide  of  intemperance  in  the  use  of 
opium,  the  Chinaman  finds  the  deed  is  already  done. 
The  daofo^er  has  alreadv  entered  the  heart.  The  man  is 
a  brute,  and  as  a  man  his  record  has  closed.  He  has 
scarcely  any  other  hope  now  than  to  become  a  new 
creature  in  Christ  Jesus. 

The  plains  of  Che-kiang  have  but  very  little  tim- 
ber, yet  the  mountains  furnish  a  supply  of  pine,  fir, 
larch  and  cypress,  chestnut  and  chestnut-leaved  oak. 
That  most  useful  of  all  plants  in  the  world,  the  bamboo, 
is  raised  everywhere,  furnishing  masts  and  rigging  for 
ships ;    fish-nets ;    scafiblding  and   roofs  for  buildings, 


162  CHRISTIAX    MISSIONS. 

as  well  as  eaves  and  water  pipes  ;  half  of  all  kinds  of 
furniture  for  the  houses ;  paper  and  food ;  pens  and 
tobacco  pipes ;  poles  for  the  shoulders  in  carrying  all 
burdens  ;  agricultural  implements  ;  shafts  for  the  animals  ; 
bridges  for  the  creeks ;  drinking-cups,  fans,  flutes  and 
looms  ;  and  other  things  —  almost  an  endless  variety. 
We  have  found  the  young  shoots  quite  a  palatable 
article  of  diet ;  still  our  Irish  potatoes  are  very  much  to 
be  preferred.  In  the  southern  half  of  China,  as 
throughout  Che-kiang,  the  chief  article  of  food  is  rice, 
together  with  such  vegetables  as  sweet  potatoes,  yams, 
taro,  onions  and  garlic,  peas  and  beans,  turnips  and 
carrots,  various  greens,  cucumbers,  bamboo-shoots,  egg- 
plant, capsicums,  and  rush.  Of  these,  which  are 
enumerated  by  Mr.  Milne,  in  his  interesting  "Life  in 
China,"  I  have  tasted  nearly  all.  Some  were  very 
palatable  ;  others  needed  the  sauce  of  extreme  hunger ; 
while  still  others  recalled  so  distinctly  experiences  in 
the  taking  of  medicine,  that  I  could  scarcely  conceive 
of  their  ever  possessing  any  relish  in  the  mouths  of 
foreigners.  Fish  is  used  extensively  with  rice,  as  also 
sheep,  swine  and  goat  flesh.  It  is  not  according  to  the 
Chinese  moral  code  to  eat  cow  or  buffalo  meat,  but 
some  do  ;  and  the  poorest  of  the  natives,  especially  in 
the  extreme  south,  will  devour  dogs,  cats  and  rats.  We 
have  seen  these  latter  articles  exposed  for  sale  in  the 
butcher  shops  of  Canton,  with  the  fur  of  the  tails  left 
on  to  indicate  the  exact  character  of  the  article.  The 
Chinese  have  a  good  deal  of  fruit,  but  they  gather  it  for 
the  market  too  quickly.  There  are  peaches  and  plums, 
large  pumelos  and  little  lemons,  oranges  and  cherries, 
loquat,  arbutus  and  persimmons,  chestnut  and  walnut. 
In  the  north  of  China  the  several  varieties  of  the  millet 
take  the  place  of  rice  as  the  standard  substance  for  all 
food.  I  think  that  it  possesses  more  nourishment  but 
less  relish.  However,  when  driven  by  stress  of  weather 
one  night  upon  the  Gulf  of  Peh-chi-li,  off"  the  Yellow 
Sea,  to  seek  shelter  in  a  native  village,  where  no 
foreigner  had  ever  been  seen  before,  that  pot  of  gray 
millet,   which  my  cousin,  Dr.  Nevius  of  the  Presby- 


WRITTEN    AND    SPOKEN   LANGUAGE.  163 

terian   mission,    succeeded  in  negotiating,  tasted  good 
indeed. 

The  language  of  the  Chinese  may  be  said  to  be  one  in 
that  they  have  only  a  single  written  language,  and  yet 
this  as  spoken  is  divided  into  many  dialects.  Their 
written  language  is  hieroglyphic,  not  phonetic.  There  is 
an  arbitrary  sign  for  ever}^  word,  many  of  them  an  effort 
at  picturing  the  word,  until  there  are  over  forty  thou- 
sand. It  is  the  strain  of  mind  required  on  the  part  of 
the  youth  of  China  to  learn  a  Avorking  number  of  these 
hieroglyphics,  that  develops  such  precocious  memories. 
We  have  seen  Chinese  children  able  to  repeat  the  whole 
of  the  New  Testament  and  large  parts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Multitudes  of  them  are  perfect  concordances  in 
the  Confucian  and  Mencian  classics.  I  had  occasion 
once,  in  addressino^  a  mission  school  throuo^h  an  inter- 
preter,  to  refer  to  that  remark  of  our  Lord  to  his  dis- 
ciples, ''  The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto,  but  to  minister ; "  and  I  added,  "  Will  those  of 
you  Avho  know  where  that  passage  of  Scripture  can  be 
found,  please  raise  your  hands."  Instantly  six  went 
up,  and  a  little  bright-eyed  girl  of  perhaps  thirteen 
years  of  age,  before  I  could  recover  from  my  astonish- 
ment and  make  a  selection,  spoke  right  out,  "Please, 
sir,  Matthew  xx.  28."  But  this  characteristic  precocity 
of  memory  dou])tlcss  affects  the  mind  in  other  faculties 
unfavorably.  There  is  an  overbalancing  of  the  intellect. 
Judgment  is  not  so  good  ;  the  reasoning  faculties  are  en- 
feebled, so  that  at  least  they  Avork  sluggishly.  Here 
also  is  to  be  found  part  of  the  mould  of  the  peculiar 
Chinese  character.  The  memory  all  over  China  is  put 
to  the  task,  similarly  as  in  Christendom  all  children  must 
learn  the  common  characters,  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  &c.,  which 
are  used  in  our  arithmetic  notation  ;  but  as  English  people 
call  these  signs  by  one  name  and  Germans  b}^  another, 
and  French  by  another,  so  in  the  case  of  the  different 
dialect-speaking  people  of  China  in  their  use  of  all  the 
common  Avritten  characters  of  their  language.  Over 
half  of  the  Chinese  speak  the  ^Mandarin,  or  court 
dialect.     This  is  the  official  language  over  the  country. 


164  CHRISTIAN    JVnSSIONS. 

But  there  are  thirty  millions  using  the  Shanghai  dialect ; 
ten  to  fifteen  millions  the  Ningpo  ;  a  like  number  the 
Fu-chow ;  eight  or  ten  millions  the  Amoy  ;  fifteen  to 
twenty  millions  the  Canton ;  and  so  on  through  a  large 
number  of  other  dialects.  They  cannot  understand 
each  other's  conversation,  but  they  can  all  read  the  same 
books,  a  fact  very  encouraging  to  the  toiling  missionary 
seeking  to  qualify  himself  to  help  in  the  preparation  of 
a  Chinese  Christian  literature. 

The  population  of  China  is  unquestionably  the  most 
industrious  in  the  world.  Their  houses  and  habits  are 
generally  very  simple,  l)ut  it  is  work,  work  with  them 
all  the  time.  Their  activity  is  not  in  the  direction  of 
cleanliness,  for  they  are  not  sweeping  out  their  dirty, 
dingy  homes  or  shops.  They  are  not  scrubbing  them- 
selves to  appear  clean  ;  that  they  consider  dangerous  to 
health.  They  are  not  washing  their  garments  very 
much,  for  they  have  few  changes,  and  there  is  so  much 
wear  and  tear  in  the  laundry  business.  But  I  never  yet 
saw  any  lazy  Chinamen  except  in  the  opium  dens.  In 
twenty-eight  cities  and  thousands  of  villages,  and  along 
thousands  of  miles  of  highways  I  never  met  a  company  of 
lounging,  do-nothing  Chinese.  They  are  always,  in  the 
daylight,  moving  around  about  something,  preparing 
their  food,  making  some  article  they  consider  useful, 
fertilizing  or  irrigating  their  ground,  etc.  The  Chinese 
are  qualified,  an<l  perhaps  God  thus  designed  them,  to 
instruct  the  world  in  industry.  One  grand  difficulty  at 
present  among  almost  all  other  peoples  is  the  lack  of  in- 
dustrious habits  on  a  part  of  a  considera])le  portion  of  the 
population.  Twenty-five  per  cent,  at  least  of  the  brain 
and  muscle  are  lounging  about  in  streets  and  stores,  and 
public  houses  and  private  parlors,  and  court-rooms  and 
pulpits,  and  everywhere.  Hard  times  in  money  mat- 
ters, famines,  wars,  dissipations,  and  man}^  other  evils 
of  our  w^orld  ground  themselves  to  a  very  large  extent 
in  the  prevailing  indolence  of  so  many  multitudes  of 
people.  Welcome  then  to  the  universally  industrious 
'xample  of  the  Chinese.  Let  them  emigrate  all  over 
Uie  globe.     In  this  alone  they  balance  all  the  harm  they 


THE    LATE    FAMINE.  165 

can  do.  I  am  glad  they  are  so  manifesting  a  colonizing 
disposition  and  ability  as  to  have  already  gained  the 
title  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  of  the  Orient. 

From  the  late  dreadful  famine,  which  has  cost  the 
lives  of  twenty  millions  of  people,  China  is  beginning  to 
derive  three  marked  ])eneiits.  It  saw  the  need  of  steam 
commmiication  with  many  parts  of  its  territory,  such  as 
India  has  had,  and  whereby  equal  calamities  have  been 
averted.  The  eyes  of  advanced  China  are  beholding  in 
a  strono^er  liHit  than  ever  the  thorouo^h  rottenness  of  the 
public  service,  whereby  of  twenty  millions  of  dollars 
raised  by  enforced  subscriptions  for  the  ftmiine  relief, 
thus  proba])ly  stimulated  by  the  generous  foreign  bene- 
factions, not  one  million  probably  escaped  the  thieving 
official  hands  in  transit.  J'vloreover  the  fact,  that  several 
foreiofn  christian  missionaries  have  laid  down  their  lives 
in  the  famine  relief  effort,  has  led  multitudes  to  say  : 
"  Here  is  religious  principle  and  power  of  which  we 
know  nothing,  and  concerning  which  our  venerable 
classics  contain  no  instruction."  Meanwhile,  providen- 
tially at  hand,  as  an  exceedingly  impressive  illustration 
to  the  Chinese  of  their  need  of  a  christian  civilization, 
is  their  own  customs  service  in  the  hands  of  foreio^ners. 
The  needed  credit  of  the  great  money  markets  of 
the  world  required  the  government  of  China  to  con- 
sent to  this  arrangement.  It  places  the  tariff  at 
all  the  open  treaty  ports  in  the  hands  principally  of 
Britons ;  the  chief  and  his  first  assistant  are  Irishmen. 
A  more  honestly  and  ably  conducted  civil  service  is  not  to 
be  found  in  any  land  ;  and  the  Chinese  are  understand- 
ing it  as  a  demonstration  l^rought  right  home  to  them  of 
the  immense  superiority  of  christian  principle  and  gov- 
ernment. For  a  long  series  of  years  now  the  Imperial 
treasury  has  found  the  accounts  balancing  correctly 
every  year,  and  the  people  have  learned  that  there  may 
be  a  distinction  between  ofHcial  power  and  robbery,  and 
that  there  is  something  in  Christianity  which  slides  their 
goods  through  the  custom  house  at  published  charges. 
It  is  extremely  fortunate  for  the  cause  of  world  evange- 
lization, that  the  foreign  customs  service  of  China  is  a 


166  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

considerable  improvement  upon  the  corresponding  de- 
partment in  our  own  America. 

When  this  example  and  these  influences  have  come 
to  be  practically  felt  throughout  the  vast  interior,  China 
will  witness  an  undreamed-of  life  of  commercial  indus- 
try within  and  between  her  provinces.  The  old  sys- 
tem of  farming  out  ail  official  trusts,  and  then  of  every 
officer  surrounding  himself  with  a  cordon  of  taxation 
at  pleasure,  must  give  way  to  adequate  salaries,  just 
taxation,  and  strict  accountability.  Then  the  many 
thousands  of  small  rude  craft  I  have  seen  upon  the 
inland  waters  must  yield  to  even  more  numerous  and 
vastly  more  useful  carrying  facilities.  The  present  cir- 
culation of  the  national  life  is  far  more  sluggish  than  it 
will  probably  be  twenty  years  hence.  In  the  past  it 
has  been  largely  connected  with  the  well-known  sys- 
tem of  Chinese  examinations.  Each  province  sends  its 
8,000  to  12,000  annually  for  first  examinations  within 
its  own  borders  in  the  several  Fu  cities.  Twenty-five 
per  cent,  of  this  number  are  successful,  and  come  to- 
gether in  each  provincial  capital  for  a  second  examina- 
tion. Then  every  third  year  from  every  province,  the 
thirty  per  cent,  successful  at  the  second  trials  flock  to 
Peking  for  the  final  test  of  their  fitness  for  official  ap- 
pointment. A  special  course  of  instruction,  however, 
there  awaits  those  showing  special  qualifications  for  the 
most  important  positions  of  trust.  Alongside  this  lat- 
ter department,  as  an  experiment  resulting  from  foreign 
influences,  an  Imperial  University  has  been  established, 
and  placed  under  the  charge  of  a  former  missionary  of 
strong  christian  character  and  great  learning.  It  was 
my  privilege  to  address  some  twenty  of  his  students, 
who  understand  English,  and  a  more  intelligent,  wide- 
awake and  promising  company  of  gentlemen  I  have 
seldom  met.  Through  the  influence  of  this  University 
and  otherwise,  we  may  expect  that  more  and  more 
practical  questions  will  gradually  take  the  place  of  the 
old  Confucian  and  Mencian  topics  in  the  various  national 
examinations,  and  that  the  system,  so  admirable  in  itself, 
will  prove  one  of  the  mightiest  levers  in  the  elevation 


FUTURE    OF   MIDDLE    KINGDOM.  167 

of  China.  Much  as  there  is  reason  to  expect  from 
Japan  in  the  future,  more  may  be  anticipated  in  the 
long  run  from  China.  The  Japanese  will  learn  to  leave 
the  black  off  their  married  women's  teeth  for  virtue's 
sake,  sooner  than  the  Chinese  to  unbind  the  horribly 
deformed  little  feet  of  their  respected  women ;  and  the 
Chinese  upper  classes  are  only  beginning  to  substitute 
foreign  medical  skill  in  their  families  for  the  old  jug- 
gleries and  cruel  reserve,  while  for  years  it  has  been 
the  Japanese  highest  ambition  to  adopt  all  the  princi- 
ples of  our  healing  arts.  And  yet,  a  wide  range  of 
observation  over  the  national  life  of  China,  a  study  of 
its  political  and  social  currents,  and  a  due  consideration 
even  of  its  conservatism ,  open  up  a  prospect  that  seems 
to  make  China  compare  with  Japan  as  England  does 
with  France. 


168 


CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


THE  RELIGIONS  OF  CHINA.     . 

T  was  a  strong  temptation,  and  we  scaled 
the  wall  that  surrounds  the  Peking  temple 
of  heaven,  and  without  an}^  conscientious 
scruples,  under  all  the  circumstances,  at 
accepting  this  introduction  to  the  vast  en- 
closure of  the  altar  of  the  oldest  religion  of 
China.  The  priests  and  their  attendants  had 
been  very  firm  in  refusing  our  party  admittance,  not  be- 
cause they  thought  the  place  too  holy  for  the  feet  of 
"  foreign  devils,"  nor  because  there  was  any  service 
going  on  which  would  be  interrupted,  nor  because  they 
had  any  idea  that  we  would  go  away  without  seeing  all 
that  there  was  within.  It  was  simply  a  question  of  ex- 
torting from  us  the  utmost  entrance  money.  Would 
they  take  a  half  a  dollar  apiece?  No,  that  paltry  sum 
was  an  insult  to  the  greatest  temple  in  China,  and  to 
the  Emperor  who  worships  there.  So  they  went  away 
indignantly  from  the  gate,  and  left  us  outside  upon  the 
threshold  of  the  door.  Returnino;  to  barter  ao^ain  with 
those  helpless  victims  whom  they  considered  entirely  in 
their  own  power,  they  refused  five,  ten  or  even  fifteen 
dollars.  Dr.  Martin,  the  president'  of  the  Imperial 
University,  had  sent  us  in  Mandarin  style,  with  official 
cart,  driver  and  outrider,  and  so  it  seemed  their  idea 
that  we  were  able  and  in  due  time  would  comply  with 
the  most  outrageous  extortion.  They  told  any  number 
of  falsehoods,  as  that  women  were  never  admitted,  that 
bribes  were  never  taken,  and  that  at  that  very  time  a 
great  religious  service  was  going  on  within. 


THE    ALTAR    OF    HEAVEN.  169 

Leaving  our  tormentors  perfectly  sanguine  that  we 
would  return  to  them  and  cross  theh^  hands  with  at  least 
ten  dollars  apiece  for  our  party,  we  strolled  for  half  a 
mile  down  the  outer  wall  of  the  five  hundred  acres'  en- 
closure, where  a  break  in  the  wall  and  a  bank  of  sand 
enabled  us  to  walk  right  over  without  any  difficulty. 
But  our  tormentors  now  rallied  at  the  oate  of  the  inside 
or  second  wall,  and  were  just  as  extortionate  as  before. 
It  seemed  even  more  so,  as  it  became  more  and  more 
evident  to  their  shrewd,  practised  eyes  that  we  were 
anxious  to  enter  and  see  the  most  important  heathen 
place  in  all  China.  Leaving  the  others  under  protection 
of  our  trusty  attendant  to  rest,  I  went  off  for  a  mile  to  the 
north  and  east  on  a  tour  of  inspection,  and  found  a  place 
where,  with  a  little  private  engineering,  the  eighteen- 
feet  wall  could  be  scaled.  We  could  not  help  it,  —  put- 
ting a  few  stones  on  each  other,  and  a  few  sticks  for 
steps  along  up  those  crevices,  and  then  in  a  few  mo- 
ments, without  a  single  act  of  vandalism,  finding  nothing 
in  the  way  now  of  all  that  is  of  supreme  religious  in- 
terest to  those  four  hundred  millions  of  Chinese.  There 
was  not  a  single  person  within  the  enclosure.  I  could 
visit  altar  and  temples  all  alone.  It  was  a  rare  privilege. 
And  when  I  returned  to  my  party,  and  the  exorbitant 
priests  found  they  had  been  outwitted,  they  were  glad 
to  accept  a  dollar  each  entrance  money,  and  to  make 
the  remainder  of  our  stay  as  agreeable  as  possible. 

A  very  important  missionary  question  centres  in  "  the 
altar  of  heaven,"  which  is  the  principal  object  of  interest 
within  this  vast  enclosure — minutely  described  by  my 
companion  in  her  book ;  as  also  in  the  word  here  used 
by  the  Emperor  for  the  divinity  he  worships,  when  an- 
nuall}^  he  appears  as  the  high  priest  of  the  empire.  Does 
the  true  God  now,  or  has  he  ever  in  the  past  received 
honor  at  this  place?  Does  the  Chinese  classical  term 
^'  Shang-ti  "  designate  the  true  God  who  has  created  all 
things,  and  who  rules  in  the  heavens  over  all  his  crea- 
tion ?  Is  this  nature  worship  —  a  lofty  materialism  ?  Or 
is  it  akin  to  the  true  spirituality  of  the  christian  faith? 
Some  eminent  christian  missionaries  and  scholars  have 


170  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

been  so  impressed  by  this  "  altar  of  heaven  "  and  its  im- 
posing ritualism,  that,  when  they  have  visited  it,  they 
have  mounted  its  marble  steps  with  unfeigned  reverence, 
and  have  stood  most  devoutly  with  uncovered  heads. 
But  we  had  no  other  feeling  than  that  we  were  in  the 
presence  of  a  great  heathen  altar,  heathen  temples,  and 
numerous  heathen  surroundings. 

It  is  unquestionable  that  all  men  have  aspirations 
after  the  true  God.  Man  was  made  for  God,  in  his 
likeness  and  for  his  use.  Even  in  its  ruin,  within 
every  human  breast  there  is  a  constant  sigh  after  him, 
from  whom  sin  has  eflected  a  thorough  moral  alienation. 
All  the  restlessness  of  men's  souls  points  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  known  or  the  unknown,  heard  or  unheard  of 
One,  who  has  said :  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor 
and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  w^ill  give  you  rest."  This 
has  doul:>tless  something  to  do  with  this  Chinese  "  altar 
to  heaven,"  and  with  the  beautiful  and  religious  cere- 
mony, which  is  here  performed  by  the  Emperor  in  the 
name  of  his  people.  From  the  myriad  idols  which 
crowd  the  Buddhist  and  Taouist  temples  of  the  land,  the 
Chinese  intelligence  and  sincerity  and  longing  for  repose 
of  soul  turn  to  this  simple  prostration  and  sacrifice  and 
prayer  and  praise  beneath  the  open  vault  of  heaven ; 
and  unquestionably  there  is  found  a  measure  of  relief,  a 
satisfaction  never  experienced  before  the  carved  idols 
of  wood  and  of  stone.  But  the  idol  is  still  there  in 
nature  deified ;  the  worship  is  nature  worship.  The 
religious  place  and  its  ceremony  represent,  it  may  be, 
the  most  noble  possible  aspirations  of  the  unaided  human 
soul,  but  the  outstretched  hands  take  hold  of  none  from 
above.  It  is  man's  work,  not  God's  work ;  human, 
not  divine  aspiration ;  heathenism  not  Christianity. 

The  form  of  worship  here  rendered  is  probably  the 
most  venerable  among  all  the  false  religions  of  the 
world,  and  takes  us  back  to  the  period  immediately 
following  the  deluge.  There  are  many  points  of  resem- 
blance between  the  Chinese  and  Jewish  rituals,  which 
lead  us  back  into  a  common  orio^in  in  relio^ious  cere- 
monies  adopted  by  Noah,  and  transmitted  to  his   de- 


SHANG-TI,    TIEN-CHU,    AND    SHIN.  171 

scendants.  Dr.  Harper  of  Canton,  who  with  his  family 
contributed  much  to  the  pleasure  of  our  visit  to  that 
part  of  China,  has  directed  attention  to  the  resem- 
blances to  l^e  found  in  the  sacrificial  burnt  offerings,  in 
the  offerings  of  different  kinds  of  fish,  in  the  libations  of 
wine,  in  the  gorgeous  robes  and  ceremonials  for  those 
who  officiate  at  the  sacrifice,  in  the  burning  of  incense, 
in  the  musical  interludes  during  the  service,  and  in  the 
use  of  full  bands  of  instruments  and  singers.  He  has 
also  noted  a  remarkable  coincidence,  in  that  one  of  the 
cups  of  wine  is  called  "  the  cup  of  blessing."  It  is  quite 
probable  that  the  original  of  some  of  these  ideas,  appro- 
priated by  Moses  and  definitely  located  in  the  Jewish 
ritual  by  David  and  Solomon,  w^ere  first  adopted  and 
transmitted  by  Xoah,  and  then  at  the  Babel  dispersion 
the  scattered  heathen  nations  carried  these  resemblances 
of  form  in  worship  even  to  the  most  distant  regions,  re- 
taining them,  Avhile  gradually  losing  all  trace  of  their 
original  significance,  even  if  they  had  not  done  so  before 
the  dispersion.  There  has  never  appeared  in  Chinese 
sacrifice  any  idea  of  propitiatory  substitution,  such  as 
formed  the  golden  links  to  all  the  history  of  Jewish 
ritualism.  The  author  of  the  article  upon  Idolatry  in 
Smith's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible  observes  that  "  The  old 
religion  of  the  Shemitic  races  consisted  in  the  deification 
of  the  powers  and  laws  of  nature.  The  sun  and  moon 
were  early  selected  as  the  outward  symbols  of  this  all- 
prevailing  power,  and  the  worship  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  was  not  only  the  most  ancient,  but  the  most  prev- 
alent system  of  idolatry.  Taking  its  rise  in  the 
plains  of  Chaldea,  it  spread  through  Egypt,  Greece, 
Scythia,  and  even  jMexico  and  Ceylon."  Probably  the 
early  Hindus  and  the  immediate  ancestors  of  the  Chinese 
people  likewise  came  to  their  lands  worshipping  a  deified 
earth,  and  a  deified  sky  or  heaven.  Their  religion  was 
of  nature  ;  they  had  lost  trace  of  the  revelation  of  the 
supernatural.  The  old  Hindu  Dyu  or  Dyaus,  the  pre- 
vedic  deified  heaven  or  heavenly  father,  corresponds  to 
the  Chinese  "  Shang-ti,"  the  object  of  nature  or  deified 
heaven,  which  is  here  believed  to  "  overshadow  and  rule 


172  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

all  things."  If  this  worship  of  the  heaven-god  deserves, 
as  some  think,  to  he  reckoned  as  of  kin  with  Chris- 
tianity, we  must  be  equally  accommodating  with  the 
Hindu  Dyaus,  the  Assyrian  Merodach,  the  Greek  Zeus, 
the  Latin  Jupiter,  and  the  German  Jezio.  No,  Chris- 
tian Missions  are  making  no  mistake  in  preaching  an  en- 
tirely new  religion  here,  instead  of  reforming  that  of 
"  Shang-ti." 

Moreover,  after  listening  to  a  great  deal  of  the  dis- 
cussion that  is  going  on  among  the  missionaries  of 
China,  as  to  the  right  term  for  christians  to  use  here 
for  God,  we  are  fully  persuaded  that  it  should  not  be 
"  Shang-ti."  This  was  the  position  taken  by  the  Koman 
Catholic  Dominicans  as  against  the  Jesuits,  nearly  two 
hundred  years  ago.  The  controversy  was  very  heated 
and  long  continued,  until  a  Papal  bull  decided  the  ques- 
tion against  the  ''  Shang-ti  party,"  and  ordered  the  use  of 
the  new  Dominican  term  ''  Tien-chu  "  for  God.  Some  of 
the  victorious  party  were  very  learned  and  competent 
men,  and  there  were  those  among  the  leaders  of  the 
Jesuit  order  who  thoroughly  s^aiipathized  with  them. 
Protestants  are  again  divided  between  the  use  of  this 
Roman  Catholic  term  and  the  word  ''Shin"  for  God. 
The  former  quite  accurately  describes  him  as  "Lord 
of  Heaven,"  yet  it  is  comparatively  a  new  term,  and 
in  its  proper  significance  is  not  generally  understood 
among  the  Chinese  people.  Besides  it  has  come  to 
be  taken  largely  as  indi(;ating  the  Roman  Catholic 
faith.  In  various  Chinese  treatises  the  term  ''Tien- 
chu-kau,"  or  the  religion  of  "  Tien-chu "  means  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion.  But  the  principal  consider- 
ation with  the  ''  Shin  "  party  now  is  to  have  a  word 
that  can  be  used  as  the  Hebrew  Eloliim,  the  Greek 
Theos,  and  the  Latin  Deus.  It  must  be  suitable  to 
mean  a  god,  or  gods,  or  the  God.  The  Chinese  lan- 
guage has  no  plural,  except  as  indicated  by  context. 
But  confessedly  this  is  rather  a  weak  term,  and  often 
means  Spirit  —  even  human  spirit.  Vrhich  is  to  be  the 
word  for  God  in  the  future  of  the  Christian  Church  in 
China,  perhaps  it  would  be  rash  for  any  one  to  j^redict 


FUNG-SHWAY.  173 

amid  the  strongly  Held  opposing  views  of  to-day.  ^^^lile 
we  do  not  believe  it  will  be  '^  Shang-ti,"  able  and  honored 
men  here  are  still  urging  it.  Those  who  adopt  ''  Tien- 
chu "  have  many  considerations  to  m^ge  in  its  favor. 
We  incline  to  the  term  "  Shin,"  and  yet  it  is  very  ob- 
jectiona])le.  Perhaps  they  had  better  transfer  the 
Greek  word  Theos.  All  might  agree  to  that,  as  the 
different  denominations  agree  to  "baptidzo."  I  have  thus 
lingered  around  this  philological  discussion,  for  the  pur- 
pose in  part  of  improving  my  best  opportunity  to  im- 
press upon  the  reader  the  missionary  difficulty  with 
heathen  languages,  both  in  preaching  and  in  the  prepa- 
ration of  a  christian  literature,  and  especially  in  the 
effort  to  accurately  reproduce  in  translation  the  inspired 
words  of  the  Holy  Scripture. 

The  Fung-shway  superstition  has  appeared  to  me  to 
be  the  popultir  echo  or  amen  of  the  masses  throughout 
China  to  the  principles  of  the  Imperial  worship  offered 
at  the  altar  of  heaven  in  Pekins:.  What  the  ceremonial 
at  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  is  to  Catholic  service  in  all  parts 
of  the  world ;  what  Jewish  reverence  at  the  wailing 
place  in  Jerusalem  beside  those  great  'stones  of  the  an- 
cient temple  is  to  the  synagogue  ritual  everywhere ; 
what  Moslemism  at  Mecca  and  Medina  is  to  the  venera- 
tion of  the  false  prophet  in  many  lands  ;  or  what  Hindu- 
ism at  Benares  is  to  the  whole  system  of  Brahmanism 
throughout  India,  the  Shang-tiism  at  Peking  seems  to 
me  to  be  to  the  doctrine  and  pr:ictice  of  Fung-shwayism 
among  almost  all  of  the  four  hundred  millions  of 
China.  There  is  certainly  the  connection^  of  identity 
of  principle  —  the  chief  one  of  nature  worship.  At 
some  period  in  the  remote  past  there  Avas  probably 
more  organic  connection  than  at  the  present.  The 
people  cannot  all  go  to  the  capital,  to  join  in  that 
solemn  procession,  which  accompanies  the  imperial 
high  priest  at  stated  occasions  to  the  altar  of  heaven, 
there  to  lift  up  their  voices  Avith  him  to  Shang-ti,  or 
deified  nature ;  so  all  over  the  land  the  Fung-shway 
priests,  or  magicians  and  astrologers  lead  the  multitudes 
in  their  OAvn  local  nature  worship,   applying  its  prin- 


174  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ciples  to  every  event  of  their  lives,  to  every  occupation, 
to  every  industry,  to  all  their  concerns  of  both  the  here 
and  the  hereafter.  This  vast  superstition  is  really  the 
religion  of  China.  People  may  be  Taouists  or  Con- 
fucianists  or  Buddhists,  but  they  all  believe  more  or  less 
thoroughly  in  the  Fung-shway  ;  and  they  always  believe 
in  this  superstition  more  than  they  believe  in  the  special 
tenets  of  either  of  those  religious  systems.  To-day  a 
Chinese  may  go  to  a  Confucian  temple  ;  to-morrow  he 
may  make  his  offering  to  a  Taouist  idol ;  and  on  the  fol- 
lowing day  he  may  offer  his  devotions  to  a  shrine  dedi- 
cated to  Buddha,  or  to  Fo,  the  name  of  Buddha  known 
in  China ;  but  he  is  not  so  inconsistent  with  regard  to 
his  Fung-shway  worship.  He  keeps  that  up  all  the  time. 
It  moulds  his  life  every  hour  of  every  day.  It  is  the 
atmosphere  he  breathes  while  he  lives,  and  in  its  faith 
he  dies  and  is  buried,  and  under  its  laws  he  expects 
to  exists  in  the  beyond. 

Fung-shway  means  literally  loind-water.  These  words 
are  very  well  selected  to  stand  for  the  sum  total  objects 
and  powers  of  nature.  The  Persian  Zoroastrians  and 
their  successors,  the  Parsees  of  India,  selected  fire 
and  the  sun  in  particular  for  their  materialistic  idolatry. 
The  ancient  Egyptians  worshipped  nature  in  the  visible 
object  of  the  Nile.  Hindus  use  the  Ganges  for  the 
same  purpose.  The  Chinese  made  choice  of  wind  and 
water.  They  sj^mbolized  vastly  superhuman  power  and 
activity.  In  the  beginning  of  their  religious  genesis, 
they  believed  that  their  "middle  kingdom"  vfas  sur- 
rounded by  water,  that  water  defended  it  from  barba- 
rians, aiid  by  water  they  realized  that  their  national  life 
was  able  to  circulate.  The  wind  filled  their  sails,  blew 
upon  them  with  either  the  chill  of  winter  or  the  balmy 
breath  of  summer,  and  brought  to  them  misery  or  com- 
fort, sickness  or  health.  And  so  probably  came  about 
their  selection  of  these  two  objects  and  forces  of'  nature 
to  represent  their  nature  god.  The  idolatry,  however,  is 
mostly  if  not  quite  lost  in  the  superstition.-  The  Fung 
and  the  Shway  are  not  so  much  worshipped,  as  is  the 
whole  occult  science,  that  has   grown  up    out  of  this 


THE    SUPERSTITION    EXPLAINED.  175 

idolatry,  believed,  studied  and  practised  by  almost  the 
entire  population  of  China.  It  is  the  most  thorough 
and  complicated  system  of  materialism  which  the  hu- 
man mind  has  ever  invented.  It  is  curious  enough  to 
excite  the  most  intense  interest,  and  must  be  under- 
stood to  form  any  correct  idea  of  the  religious  condition 
of  China  at  the  present  time. 

As,  when  it  l^egins  to  be  winter,  the  cold  winds  blow 
from  the  north,  and  vegetation  dies,  discomfort  ensues, 
and  diseases  multiply ;  so  this  is  taken  as  an  index  to 
nature's  laws  in  regard  to  all  the  evils  that  can  come 
upon  human  life.  Every  harmful  influence  is  from  a 
northerly  direction,  whether  to  business,  or  to  social  or 
political  prospects,  to  health  or  to  strength,  to  the  con- 
struction of  a  house  or  to  the  digging  of  a  grave.  One 
half  of  the  great  task  of  life  is  to  make  such  arrange- 
ments as  shall  avoid  these  blighting  blasts  from  the 
north.  Or  if  they  must  be  faced,  then  counteracting 
influences  must  be  secured.  Extra  clothing  is  put  on  in 
winter,  and  fires  are  built,  and  windows  and  doors  are 
closed,  and  more  hearty  food,  if  procurable,  is  eaten, 
to  withstand  the  cutting  northern  winds ;  and,  so,  a 
great  variety  of  things  must  be  done  to  resist  the  north 
evil  upon  childhood,  middle  age,  old  age,  upon  friend- 
ships and  marriages,  upon  emplopiients,  contracts, 
voyages,  education,  manners,  improvements,  upon  every 
thing  incident  to  human  experience.  On  the  other  hand, 
as,  when  it  begins  to  l)e  summer,  or  the  spring  takes 
the  place  of  winter,  the  genial  atmospheric  influences 
gradually  work  their  way  upward  from  the  south,  and 
vegetation  revives,  comfort  returns  to  those  dreary, 
dingy,  unventilated  dwellings,  and  health  and  happi- 
ness are  restored  to  the  masses,  whose  scanty  clothing 
and  limited  fuel  have  been  sure  to  be  the  occasion  of 
much  sickness  and  death  durinsf  the  winter  months ;  so 
this  is  taken  as  the  other  index  to  nature's  uniform 
laws  in  respect  to  every  benign  influence  that  can  be  ex- 
perienced by  human  life.  Everything  favorable  comes 
from  that  southerly  direction,  eveiy  preventative  to 
disease,  every  circumstance  conducive  to  health,  every 


176  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

encouragement  to  good  crops,  to  prosperous  mercantile 
transactions,  to  successful  commercial  enterprises,  every 
contribution  to  social  advance,  or  political  preferment, 
or  gambling  luck,  or  paying  criminality,  or  to  a  happy 
death  and  life  beyond,  all  from  the  south.  So  the  other 
half  of  the  great  task  of  life  is  to  make  such  arrange- 
ments as  shall  gather  up  and  appropriate  the  most 
possible  of  these  beneficent  southern  influences.  It  has 
been  found  well  that  houses  face  to  the  south,  that  more 
sunlight  be  secured  for  the  comfort  and  convenience  of 
the  dwellings.  With  that  exposure  men  have  learned 
to  obtain  the  earliest  and  best  crops.  In  winter  the 
invalid  goes  south  to  get  more  of  the  blessed  influence. 
Even  the  instincts  of  the  animals  tell  in  which  direction 
is  to  be  found  all  that  gives  vitality  and  comfort.  So  a 
great  variety  of  expedients  must  be  resorted  to  by  man 
to  secure  as  much  as  possible  of  the  corresponding 
southern  good,  that  comes  wafted  along  ten  thousand 
parallel  lines  to  all  conditions  of  human  life.  Houses 
must  be  built  of  given  heights,  and  positions,  and  bear- 
ings upon  all  surrounding  houses  and  hills.  Gateways, 
and  roofs  and  arches  must  be  made  according  to  certain 
models.  No  enterprise  of  any  kind  must  be  undertaken 
without  consideration  of  all  its  practical  bearings  upon 
the  Fung-shway  of  the  entire  surrounding  neighbor- 
hood. An  extra  story  upon  a  building,  or  even  a  too 
ambitious  cornice  might  occasion  the  letting  in  of  a  north- 
ern smallpox  influence  upon  a  dwelling  a  mile  away, 
and  the  spoiling  of  all  the  salutary  arrangements  for 
good  Fung-shway  in  the  hitherto  most  prosperous  mer- 
cantile business  of  the  city.  It  will  not  do  for  Amer- 
icans and  English  to  blame  the  Chinese  for  such  ab- 
surdities, for  it  is  too  lately  when  multitudes  of  our 
forefathers  were  carried  away  by  the  equally  foolish 
superstition  of  witchcraft,  and  wei'e  burning  man}^  good 
people  because  children  and  silly  folks  reported  them- 
selves possessed  with  their  witches.  Nor  is  it  more 
ridiculous  than  many  of  the  features  of  the  Hindu  caste 
system,  with  which  we  shall  become  familiar  farther  on 
during  our  visit  to  India. 


MAGICIANS    OF   FUNG-SHWAY.  177 

It  is  extremely  difficult  for  those  who  have  not  re- 
sided in  China  to  appreciate  the  all-pervading  dominar 
tion  and  national  control  of  the  Fung-shway  superstition. 
No  religious  idea,  no  political  nor  social  idea,  other 
than  this,  exercises  such  sovereignty  over  the  thoughts, 
customs^  habits,  and  prospects  of  the  vast  Chinese  popu- 
lation. No  priesthood  in  the  world  has  more  tightly 
bound  the  people  with  ecclesiastical  fetters  than  the 
magicians  of  Fung-shway.  These  conjurers  may  also 
be  Taouists,  Confucianists,  or  Buddhists,  or  they  may 
be  too  busy  or  disinclined  to  give  any  attention  to  these 
less  profitable  lines  of  the  religious  business ;  but  they 
aggregate  a  vast  multitude,  they  make  the  most  money 
of  any  professional  class,  and  hold  in  their  hands  to-day 
power  throughout  China  that  rivals  any  other  that  is 
heathen  and  of  the  country.  They  must  be  consulted  at 
every  turn  in  life  by  tliese  hundreds  of  millions.  The 
native  medical  business  belongs  to  them,  which  is  almost 
entirely  a  system  of  pure  quackery, — a  consultation,  not 
of  the  real  principles  of  the  healing  art,  but  of  the  vari- 
ous imaginary  influences  bearing  upon  good  and  bad 
luck.  It  will  not  do  for  any  house-builder  to  go  on 
without  a  Fung-shway  doctor  in  partnership,  for  some 
of  the  necromancing  fraternity  would  l)e  sure  to  dis- 
cover a  reason,  sufficient  in  the  judgment  of  neighbors, 
for  pulling  it  down.  Millions  of  farmers  will  not  hire  a 
boat  on  river  or  canal  to  take  their  produce  to  market 
unless  some  adept  at  Fung-shway  declares  the  voyage 
will  prove  a  lucky  one,  and  burns  the  proper  number  of 
fire-crackers.  The  streets  of  Chinese  cities  are  gener- 
ally made  crooked.  The  traveller  is  constantly  meeting 
with  sharp  angles  and  twists  around,  which  seem  to  be 
without  any  occasion  at  all.  And  almost  invariably  at 
the  gates  of  the  city  wall  he  will  find  he  has  to  enter  by 
one  point  of  the  compass  and  make  his  exit  at  another, 
his  path  marking  an  L  or  right  angle.  We  foreigners 
do  not  understand  this  simple  provision  of  Fung-shway 
wisdom,  because  our  gross  material  occupations  have 
never  permitted  us  to  soar  aloft  into  the  pure  heights  of 
this  occult  religious  science.      Were  we  not  so  much 


178  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

preoccupied  with  mechanical  contrivances,  with  the  uses 
of  steam  and  electricity  and  gunpowder^  we  might  have 
learned  that  it  is  the  nature  of  all  evil  influences  to  travel 
in  straight  lines,  while  good  influences  possess  the  re- 
markable faculty  of  dodging  around  sharp  corners. 
Does  not  both  the  ' '  fung  "  and  the  "  shway  "  point  this 
out  clearly?  A  strong  northern  wind,  such  as  wrecks 
a  vessel  or  prostrates  a  house,  comes  right  at  you,  and 
shows  its  discontent  by  noise  and  confusion  if  compelled 
to  meet  a  corner.  But  the  gentle  zephyrs,  which  the 
south  breathes  upon  us,  float  round  and  round  like  birds 
upon  the  wing,  and  are  rather  invited  than  repelled  by 
the  little  nooks  and  crannies  of  our  homes.  How  stupid 
of  the  foreigners  to  know  nothing  of  this  beautiful 
science,  which  tells  us  how  by  angles  and  bearings, 
by  brooms  fastened  on  house-roofs  toward  the  sky,  by 
holes  in  the  ground  and  mounds  in  the  air,  both  to  ward 
oflT  all  evil  and  to  encourage  all  good  !  Selection  of  a 
place  for  one's  grave  is  about  the  most  difficult  thing  to 
accomplish  in  China,  and  the  difficulty  increases  in  pro- 
portion to  the  wealth  of  the  person  to  be  buried,  or  of 
any  of  his  relatives,  who  may  be  supposed  to  take  a 
practical  interest  in  securing  an  eligible  location  for  the 
corpse  and  immunity  from  the  annoyance  of  the  de- 
parted spirit  in  his  ugly  and  revengeful  moods.  When 
we  visited  the  How-qua  family  of  Canton,  whose  wall 
encloses  thirty  acres  of  the  city,  with  many  buildings, 
parks,  and  gardens,  and  whose  wealth  is  estimated  at 
twenty  millions  of  dollars,  we  were  permitted  to  see  the 
great  vault,  where  the  bodies  of  deceased  members  of 
the  family  are  kept  till  burial.  It  was  very  plain  that 
the  Fung-shway  priests  do  a  thriving  business  for  the 
How-quas.  IVe  counted  seven  coffins  there,  all  sealed 
and  ready  for  the  ground,  whenever  the  cunning  magi- 
cians have  decided  upon  a  favorable  locality.  One  of 
the  coffins  had  been  waiting  upon  their  financial  con- 
venience fourteen  years.  All  this  time  the  jugglers  had 
been  scouring  the  neighborhood  for  msiny  miles ;  but 
always,  on  account  of  some  building,  or  hill,  or  tree,  or 
other  grave  bearing  upon  the  proposed  site,  the  Fung- 
shway  was  decidedly  bad. 


VAST    LABYRINTH    OF    DIFFICULTIES.  179 

Until  this  superstition  can  he  more  shaken,  the  diffi- 
culty in  the  wa}^  of  railroads  and  telegraphs  is  insur- 
mountable. Graves,  indeed,  would  be  disturbed,  for 
the  whole  country  is  one  vast  cemetery,  and  thus  the 
entire  Fung- sh way  balance  of  arrangements  among  the 
departed  be  In'oken  up  — a  calamity  of  inconceivable 
magnitude  —  for  it  would  bring  the  whole  spirit-world 
tearing  mad  down  upon  the  present  generation  ;  but, 
then,  don't  you  see?—  ah  !  no  ;  base,  grovelling  foreign- 
ers cannot  see,  they  have  not  the  necessary  faculties  and 
culture.  Railroads  and  telegraphs  are  in  straight  lines, 
just  the  facility  which  all  kinds  of  evil  influences  are  on 
the  alert  to  improve.  Wars,  famines,  pestilences,  loss  of 
business,  the  breaking  up  of  friendships,  conflagrations, 
conjugal  infidelities,  everything  wicked,  awful,  calarai- 
tou's,  are  sure  to  come  on  those  straight  lines.  If  rail- 
roads could  only  be  made  zig-zag,  and  the  wires  were 
bent  into  all  sorts  of  shapes  between  every  pole ;  but, 
oh,  there  is  the  other  difficulty  of  the  poles,  their  inimi- 
cal bearings  upon  the  houses,  lands,  and  graves  all  oyer 
the  country.  Foreigners  should  see  that  it  is  quite  im- 
possible in  a  land  of  true  science  and  practical  wisdom. 
It  is  obvious  that  this  superstition  is  a  mountain-like 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  evangelizing  effiarts,  as  well 
as  the  civilizing  appliances  and  monuments  of 
Christianity.  It  is  the  great  difficulty  in  building 
homes  for  our  missionaries,  and  chapels  and  schools  for 
native  converts.  There  is  sure  to  be  interference  with 
the  good  or  bad  luck  of  the  neighborhood.  The  harm 
cannot  be  overcome  by  the  guardian  influence  of  the 
district  pagoda,  whose  purpose,  associated  it  mny  be 
with  some'rehc  of  Fo,  or  Buddha,  is  chiefly  to  superin- 
tend the  Fung-shway  over  as  large  a  territory  as  can  be 
seen  from  its  summit.  I  have  seen  many  mission  build- 
ings that  have  had  to  be  modified  in  construction,  or  erec- 
ted in  some  difl'erent  locality  than  that  chosen  to  s?itisfy 
these  superstitious  demands.  Multitudes  of  localities  in 
China  to-day  are  practically  inaccessible  to  mission  work 
for  this  same  reason,  A  celebrated  instance  has  lately 
transpired  at  Fu-chow,  where  it  has  been  finally  decided 


180  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

that  the  Fung-shway  of  a  neighboring  Chinese  temple 
requires  the  removal  of  the  large,  well-built  and  long- 
occupied  premises  of  the  English  Church  Missionary 
Society.  As  I  went  over  those  buildings,  which  are 
doomed,  it  was  with  much  indignation  and  sadness  at 
their  coming  fate,  l:>ut  it  was  also  Avith  gratitude  that  in 
that  great  city  they  had  already  been  of  so  much  use  in 
the  cause  of  Christ. 

Long  after  the  twin  sister  faiths  of  Shang-tiism  and 
Fung-shwayism  were  born  in  China,  or  migrated  hither, 
from  nature  worship,  there  came  upon  the  stage  together 
Laou-tsze  and  Confucius,  representing  two  religio-philo- 
sophical  extremes,  which  were  m  time  the  inevitable  out- 
growth of  the  preceding  two,  or  two-fold  superstition. 
Laou-tsze  Avas  the  founder  of  Taouism,  the  polytheistic 
materialism  of  which  represented  the  tendency  to  make 
a  deity  of  or  for  every  object  of  nature,  to  lower  the 
whole  religious  system  to  a  level  of  astrology  and  al- 
chemy, and  to  degrade  the  priesthood  and  their  followers 
into  a  sediment  of  ignorant  quackery  and  conjury .  Laou- 
tsze  speculated  upon  the  invisible  poAvers  in  man  and 
aboA^e  man  ;  he  even  took  some  steps  toAvard  important 
evangelical  doctrine  in  his  explanation  of  the  principle  of 
the  "  Taou,"  or  "  Wisdom,"  but  the  mastering  spirit  of  his 
system  Avas  materialistic,  polytheistic,  and,  next  to  Hin- 
duism and  Fetishism,  the  most  grossly  and  debasingly 
idolatrous  of  any  religious  creed  of  the  Avorld.  He  re- 
garded the  human  soul,  we  are  told,  "as  the  essence  or 
substance  of  the  body,  a  vapor  AA^hich  escapes  at  death." 
"  The  stars  are  divine :  the  five  great  planets  being,  in 
like  manner,  the  essences  of  the  five  elements  of  our 
globe  —  Mercury,  of  Avater ;  Venus,  of  metal;  Mars, 
of  fire;  Jupiter,  of  AA^ood ;  and  Saturn,  of  earth."  It 
is  not  an  inconsistency  to  the  Chinese  mind  to  conceive 
of  the  essence  of  a  thing  being  absent  from  the  thing  it- 
self;  indeed,  as  Ave  shall  see,  their  thought  takes  in  the 
conception  of  subdivisions  of  the  very  essence  of  a 
soul.  A  Chinaman  is  quite  likely  to  affirm  that  he 
thoroughly  understands  the  doctrine  of  the  TriRity,  for 
he  is  very  familiar  with  the  idea  of  trichotomy  of  essen- 


LAOU-TSZE    AND    KOONG-FOO-TSZE.  181 

tial  oneness.  Taouism  subsequently  adopted  all  the 
state  gods  of  China,  chief  among  whom  is  Kwan-te,  the 
god  of  war.  It  has  its  sea-gods  and  river-gods,  its 
gods  of  the  land  and  of  the  woods,  of  all  the  difierent 
productions  of  the  soil,  of  wealth,  of  health,  of  the 
thunder  and  lightning,  and  so  on  indefinitely.  The 
numerous  idols  of  Taouism  require  holes  to  be  made 
in  their  backs,  and  lungs,  a  heart,  and  intestines 
to  be  inserted,  before  they  are  objects  of  w^orship. 
Practically  the  range  of  Taouism  is  confined  to  the 
secular  affairs  of  this  life.  Chinese,  especially  of  the 
lower  and  more  ignorant  classes,  go  to  its  temples 
to  secure  the  services  of  the  gods  in  the  matters  of  the 
world.  They  want  success  in  business,  or  advance- 
ment in  political  life ;  and  they  bribe  the  higher 
powers  to  assist  them  in  the  adjustment  of  good 
Fung-shway  influences. 

The  extreme  of  materialistic  thought  and  polytheistic 
idolatry  necessitated  a  reaction,  which  would  carry  the 
multitude  of  the  more  intelligent  and  conscientious  far 
to  the  other  side  beyond  the  nature  worship  of  the 
Shang-ti  or  of  the  Fung-shway.  Confucius,  with 
his  philosophical  writings  in  this  same  sixth  cen- 
tury before  Christ,  gave  form  to  this  reactionary 
drift  of  Chinese  thought.  His  system  reduced  the 
religious  element  to  its  minimum,  rose  above  the 
great  mass  of  surrounding  superstition,  and  con- 
fined itself  almost  entirely  to  statements  of  moral  prin- 
ciple. Asked  by  a  disciple  regarding  death,  Confucius 
replied,  "While  you  do  not  know  life,  what  can  you 
know  about  death  ?  "  While  sometimes  he  made  men- 
tion of  the  Majesty  of  Heaven,  which  seems,  however,  to 
have  been  but  a  Shang-ti  conception,  he  seldom  referred 
to  any  personal  God,  or  to  any  relations  between  the 
human  and  the  divine.  He  confined  his  attention  to 
"the  three  relations  and  five  constant  duties" — ''the 
relation  of  prince  and  subject,  father  and  son,  and  hus- 
band and  wife,  with  the  obligations  flowing  from  them, 
and  moral  qualities  inherent  in  all,  of  benevolence,  up- 
rightness, decorum,  knowledge,  and  faithfulness."     The 


182  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

only  religious  observance  required  by  Confucius  is  the 
worship  of  the  ancestral  tablet.  This  small  strip  of 
wood,  painted  with  the  name  and  virtues  of  the  de- 
ceased, is  to  be  found  in  the  homes  throughout  China 
more  frequently  than  the  other  kinds  of  idols.  In  the 
Confucian  temples  are  to  be  met  only  the  ta])lets  to  the 
great  sage  himself,  and  to  Mencius  and  other  associate 
sages.  The  proper  name  of  Confucius  is  Koong-foo-tsze. 
The  Jesuits  Latinized  it  into  the  form  Avith  which  we 
are  more  familiar.  Each  person  by  the  Chinese  is  sup- 
posed to  have  three  spirits,  or  a  threefold  manifestation 
of  the  same  spirit  essence.  One  goes  vvitli  tlie  body 
into  its  grave  ;  one  ascends  like  vapor  into  the  heavens  ; 
the  other  remains  in  the  ancestral  tablet,  which  is  imme- 
diately prepared  by  the  deceased's  friends  and  placed  on 
a  shelf  of  the  ftimily  mansion  or  in  some  temple.  This 
latter  is  worshipped.  Confucius  found  the  custom  prev- 
alent and  endorsed  it.  He  seem<;  to  have  done  it  mostly 
in  the  interest  of  a  cultivation  of  filial  aifection.  "  Among 
the  hundred  virtues,"  he  said,  "  filial  piety  is  the  chief." 
And  again,  "  Fidelity,  filial  piety,  chastity,  and  up- 
rio^htness  diffuse  frao^rance  through  a  hundred  o-enera- 
tions."  But  this  moral  use  of  the  reverence  of  ancestry 
has  almost  universally  given  place  in  China  to  gross 
sui:)erstitious  idolatry.  The  reverence  paid  with  mute 
prostration  to  the  tablet  of  Confucius  is  a  refinement 
upon  Taouism,  but  it  is  far  from  what  the  founder 
inculcLited.  The  filial  virtue  has  been  but  very  im- 
perfectly cultivated.  There  appears  in  all  the  ances- 
tral worship  throughout  China  to-day  not  so  much  love 
for  those  who  have  gone  before,  as  superstitious  fear 
lest  that  part  of  the  deceased's  spirit  floating  about 
in  the  air  should  take  vengeance  for  any  neglects  and 
produce  unfavorable  fung-shway  influences.  I  have 
seen  many  Chinese  services  to  the  ancestral  tablet, 
but  the  occasion  appeared  to  be  that  of  almost  mor- 
tal fear  on  the  part  of  the  household.  Nor  is  the 
Chinese  care  for  the  graves  of  ancestry  so  much  the 
benign  influence  of  Confucius'  teaching  upon  filial  piety, 
as  the  mastery  of  a  superstitious  dread  lest  the  invisible 


ANCESTRAL    WORSHIP.  183 

spirit  should  become  dissatisfied  with  the  attentions  of 
the  living  and  wreak  vengeance.  This  worship  of  fear 
has  impressed  me  as  a  part  of  the  great  fung-shway 
superstition,  rather  than  that  the  doctrine  and  practice 
of  Fung-shway  are  merely  incidental  to  ancestral  wor- 
ship, as  claimed  hy  my  friend  Dr.  Yates  of  Shanghai, 
to  whom  nevertheless  I  am  chiefly  indebted  for  all 
original  information  bearing  upon  this  subject.  The 
magnitude  of  the  appendix,  however,  can  hardly  be 
overstated.  He  carefully  estimates  that  the  public  and 
private  annual  expenses  throughout  China  to  keep  quiet 
the  spirits  of  the  dead  amount  to  the  enormous  sum 
of  $154,752,000.  This  is  chiefly  for  "  dien,"  or  the 
paper  money  and  other  articles  burnt  for  the  use  of  the 
departed,  and  for  "  koong-tuhs,"  or  religious  theatrical 
shows  performed  generally  by  the  Taouist  priests.  It 
is  a  system  of  bribing  the  authorities  of  the  spirit  world 
after  the  manner  well  understood  in  this  life.  I  have 
often  seen  the  "  koong-tuh "  performed  to  hire  the  de- 
parted to  cut  short  their  return  visit  to  the  family  resi- 
dence, and  to  hasten  away  with  their  beggarly  company 
of  revengeful  spirits.  Often  the  feasts  prepared  for 
the  invisible  guests  are  of  the  most  elaborate  and  expen- 
sive kind.  They  of  course  serve  a  double  purpose,  being 
aftenvards  dedicated  to  the  more  conspicuous  appetites 
of  the  priests  themselves.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  to 
impose  upon  a  bereaved  family  to  the  amount  of  $1,000, 
in  order  to  release  their  relative  from  "  Yung-Kan,"  the 
dark  world  prison,  lest  in  time  he  should  break  out 
himself  and  wreak  terrible  vengeance.  The  property 
laws  of  China  are  grounded  on  this  system  of  supersti- 
tion. April  is  the  month  almost  entirely  given  up  every 
year  to  ancestral  worship  and  its  influence  upon  Fung- 
shway.  The  season  is  named  "  Ch'ing-ming."  No 
Chinese,  but  evangelical  christians,  dare  disregard  the 
observances  of  this  season.  But  to  the  wealthy  no  an- 
nual service  secures  tranquillity,  their  rest  being  liable 
to  disturbance  whenever  the  priests  want  more  money. 
On  the  whole  it  is  very  evident  that  the  Confu- 
cian morals  have  been  a  failure  in  China.     Beautiful  in 


184  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

many  respects,  they  yet  have  possessed  fatal  defects  m 
principle  and  power.  Their  fruits  are  thoroughly  dis- 
couraging. Yet  Confucianism  is  superior  to  the  more 
vaunted  Buddhism  we  proceed  to  consider  in  our  next 
chapter. 


BUDDHISM.  185 


CHAPTER  Xn. 

BUDDHISM  NOT  ''THE  LIGHT  OF  ASIA." 

f  N  describing  oriental  religions  there  is 
almost  uniformly  too  muc^h  credit  given  to 
the  reputed  founder.  A  man,  whether 
philosopher,  warrior,  poet  or  magician,  is 
said  to  have  originated  the  faith  and  to 
have  set  the  whole  mighty  current  of  pop- 
ular belief  and  practice  into  its  irresistible 
movement.  So  we  are  generally  told  that  Buddha 
originated  Buddhism,  Confucius  Confucianism,  Laou- 
tsze  Taouism,  Mahomet  Islamism,  Zoroaster  Mazdeism 
or  Parsism,  and  thus  on  with  regard  to  all  -the  other 
great  world  religions.  But,  in  the  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  wx  rnight  as  well  speak  of  those  mighty 
reform  movements  of  modern  times  in  Europe  and 
Great  Britain,  as  simply  Luther's  and  Wesley's  refor- 
mations. Many  indeed  think  they  were,  and  are  ac- 
customed to  make  such  references.  But  there  were 
reformers  before  these  reformations,  and  each  of  them 
was  for  years  and  generations  preceded  by  movements 
of  thought  and  conviction,  and  by  accumulations  of 
resistless  force  in  the  public  conscience,  which  were  of 
far  greater  consequence  than  the  men  who  finally  stood 
forth  as  the  representatives  of  those  ideas  and  powers. 
Had  it  not  been  they,  it  would  have  been  others ;  for 
the  times  were  ripe  for  such  representation.  The  wave 
had  mounted  to  its  crest,  and  who  appeared  there  was 
of  minor  consequence.  The  foaming  crest,  that  attracts 
the  attention  and  gives  forth  the  sound,  is  not  the 
mountain  billow,  that  can  lift  the  largest  ocean  steam- 
ship   far  up    into  the  air.     And  such  was  Buddha  to 


180  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Buddhism.  Buddhism  made  Buddha  more  than  he 
made  it.  He  indexed  a  mighty  movement  in  India  life, 
reproduced  under  varying  circumstances  in  China  and 
Japan  during  succeeding  centuries. 

Thus,  and  not  as  Christ  stood  for  Christianity,  for  he 
was  its  head,  its  heart,  its  all ;  but  as  the  demand  of  a 
time,  the  creature  of  the  circumstances  of  his  surround- 
ings, Buddha  appeared,  according  to  M.  de  St.  Hilaire, 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  tifth  century  before  Christ. 
With  this  chronolog}^  agrees  the  Sanskrit  professor 
Williams  of  Oxford,  who  speaks  of  Siddhartha, —  Bud- 
dha's proper  name, —  having  entered  upon  his  work  in 
the  district  of  Magadha  or  Behar,  between  the  Ganges 
and  the  Himalayas,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury before  Christ.  Professor  Tielc  of  Leiden  places 
Siddhartha's  labors  in  the  second  half  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury before  Christ.  This  difficulty  of  chronology  indi- 
cates a  region  of  tradition  and  legend.  From  characters 
which  arose  in  this  shadowy  past,  it  is  one  of  the  most 
easy  and  probable  tasks  for  oriental  poetry  and  hostility 
to  Christ  in  Christendom  to  draw  forth  moral  and  re- 
ligious wisdom,  which  the}'  did  not  contain.  As  Greeks 
and  Romans,  in  their  intellectual  advancements  and 
growths  of  moral  perception,  quickened  and  furnished 
by  more  or  less  remote  contact  with  Old  Testament  reve- 
lation, kept  enriching  their  mythologies,  adding  more  and 
more  fancied  virtues  to  their  deified  heroes  and  human- 
ized gods  ;  so,  at  the  present  time,  do  Asiatics,  Euro- 
peans and  Americans,  whose  temper  of  mind  is  to  find 
their  supreme  good  somewhere  else  than  in  Christ, 
borrow  from  him  to  exao-orerate  and  o\  erdress  the  idols 
of  their  mythologies. 

The  Vedic  relio:ion,  which  was  the  dauo^hter  of  the 
Aryan,  and  the  granddaughter  of  the  Indo-German, 
had  given  birth  to  Brahmanism,  and  this  latter  event 
had  occurred  not  later  probably  than  the  eighth  century 
before  Christ.  The  Yedic  singers  of  the  sacred  songs, 
the  fire-priests  of  tho  liigveda,  in  time  developed  into 
the  divine  Brahman  caste,  itself  the  parent  of  the  whole 
complicated  caste  system  of  Hinduism.    Brahmans,  i.e.. 


VEDIC    REACTION    FEOM    BRAHMANISM.  187 

the  learned,  were  known  indeed  to  the  Hindu  Aryans, 
as  were  also  Kshattriyas  andYaisyas,  but  the  deification 
of  the  Brahmans  and  the  development  of  the  great 
t3rrannical  caste  system  occurred  later.  In  the  course 
of  three  or  four  centuries  the  situation  became  unen- 
durable. Each  Brahman  must  be  worshipped  and 
served  as  a  god.  Women  and  all  the  lower  classes 
were  mere  beasts  of  burden.  None  could  rise  above 
th^  condition  in  which  they  were  born.  For  the  future 
the  doctrine  of  transmigration  was  taught,  Avith  dicta- 
tion of  the  most  rigid  asceticism  in  order  to  escape  the 
rebirths  into  animals  and  plants,  and  to  attain  absorp- 
tion into  the  soul  of  the  universe.  The  way  was  open 
for  a  popular  blow  at  theism,  brought  into  such  dis- 
credit by  the  Brahmans  ;  for  the  rel^ellion  of  multitudes 
against  the  caste  system  ;  for  a  partial  emancipation  of 
women  ;  and  for  some  less  horrible  asceticism  or  auster- 
ities, some  abbreviation  of  metemps^^chosis,  and  some 
goal  for  supreme  felicity  other  than  the  sinking  into  the 
pantheistic  All,  against  which  Brahmanism  had  thorough- 
ly turned  the  taste  of  multitudes.  All  these  currents  of 
thought  and  feeling  were  moving  mightily  toward  a 
resultant,  before  Siddhartha  was  born.  What  must  be 
the  principles  of  his  reform  are  determined  before  he 
leaves  the  luxurious  court  of  Suddhodhana  of  Kapila- 
vastu  in  Ayodhya  (Oude),  and  seeks  instructions  from 
the  Brahmans  at  Eajagriha,  the  capital  of  the  Magadha. 
It  must  to  some  extent  be  a  revival  of  the  old  Vedic 
religion,  as  every  great  reform  has  to  be  a  restatement 
of  neglected  principles,  a  resurrection  from  the  dead. 
The  favorite  Vedic  Sun-god  may  be  expected  to  come 
back  to  life  in  the  popular  esteem,  if  not  in  the  life  of 
the  leader,  soon  after  in  his  traditional  biography.  The 
legend  of  this  Sun-god  is  strikingly  similar  to  that 
which  has  come  to  be  associated  with  the  record  of 
Buddha.  The  principles  of  the  coming  reform  leader 
must  be  atheistic,  anti-caste,  and  again  as  in  the  old 
Vedic  teaching,  morality  must  be  essential  to  religion ; 
the  enormity  of  sin  must  be  emphasized,  and  special 
attention  must  be  given  to  a  life  beyond  the  present- 


188  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Astronomers  have  located  planets  before  their  discovery 
to  sight ;  and  the  historian,  with  whom  history  has  be- 
come a  real  science,  can  describe  and  locate  Buddha 
before  his  appearance  in  India. 

Four  centuries  later  in  China  the  conditions  of  re- 
ligious thought  presented  a  still  grander  opportunity  for 
the  introduction  of  Buddhistic  principles.  There  was 
no  Brahmanism  to  rebel  against,  but  a  vacuum  to  be 
filled.  It  need  not  therefore,  as  a  mere  revival,  come 
and  go,  as  it  largely  did  in  India ;  l^ut,  if  it  has  plia- 
bility enough  to  adapt  itself  to  Chinese  circumstances, 
it  may  be  at  least  as  permanent  as  Confucianism  or 
Taouism,  and  live  as  long  as  the  great  underlying 
Shang-ti  and  Fung-shway  religions  of  nature-worship. 
Chinese  superstition  was  not  satisfied  with  Confucius' 
moral  philosopJiy  and  endorsement  of  ancestral  worship, 
nor  with  the  materialism  and  idolatry  and  sorcery  of 
Taouism.  There  was  the  want  of  a  morality  with  more 
religion,  idolatry  with  more  and  more  reasonable  spirit- 
uality, and  especially  a  broad  platform  that  could  ac- 
commodate the  old  superstitions  and  the  new  morals 
and  idols,  giving  to  them  all  new  bonds  of  brotherhood, 
and  beyond  and  above  them  all  holding  up  a  better  light 
upon  future  destiny.  In  A.  D.  65  the  Emperor  Ming-te, 
influenced  by  a  dream,  introduced  Buddhism  into  China. 
But  the  new  faith  had  to  abandon  some  of  its  most 
cherished  principles  in  order  to  propagate  itself  upon 
the  enormous  field  of  its  opening  opportunity.  The 
boasted- virtue  of  this  India  religious  system  appeared 
to  great  disadvantage  in  this  emergency.  It  was  ready 
to  lay  down  the  weapons  of  its  warfare  against  Theism, 
only  advancing  Buddha  above  the  other  gods ;  to  pro- 
fess a  modification  of  Siddhartha's  annihilation  doctrine 
of  Nirvana  ;  and,  in  addition,  to  meet  the  more  popular 
demand  reo-ardino-  the  future  state  with  the  fiction  of  a 
"  Peaceful  Land  in  the  West "  presided  over  hy  another 
Buddha,  named  Amitabha,  or  ''  boundless  age."  Bud- 
dhism was  ready  for  the  sake  of  proselyting  China  to 
practically  abandon  Nirvana  for  the  Western  Heaven, 
Shakyamuni  for  Amitabha,  and  to  substitute  prayer  for 


ACCOMMODATING    PKOSELYTISM.  189 

contemplation.  Still  cherishing  the  dogma  of  trans- 
migration, and  believing,  as  did  Hinduism,  that  their 
ancestors  might  be  in  the  animals  all  around,  yet  to  win 
Chinese  converts  Buddhism  could  countenance  the  eat- 
ing of  flesh.  The  history  of  religions  hardly  shows  a 
parallel  to  such  weakness  of  hold  upon  fundamental 
principles  in  the  presence  of  an  opportunity  at  prosely- 
tism.  We  shall  not  be  surprised  at  this,  vrhen  we  come 
to  consider  the  essential  character  of  the  Buddhistic 
morals.  They  were  something  to.be  put  on,  and  hence 
to  be  taken  off  when  occasion  required. 

Along  in  the  fifth  century  of  our  era  a  proposition 
for  another  marriage  came  from  the  Shintooism  of  Japan 
to  the  Buddhism  of  India.  The  bonds  were  readily  en- 
tered into,  even  as  previously  with  the  various  religions 
of  China,  the  Animism  of  Burmah  and  Siam,  and  even 
with  the  old  monstrous  Brahmanism,  which  she  had 
previously  shaken  off.  It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to 
suppose,  that  Avhen  Hinduism  revived  in  India,  and 
Buddhism  almost  disappeared,  that  there  was  a  mighty 
exodus  of  all  those  one  or  two  hundred  millions  of 
Siddhartha's  followers  to  the  east  of  Asia,  the  scatter- 
ing of  a  vast  host  true  to  their  vaunted  principles,  as 
when  the  early  Christians  left  Palestine,  or  the  unslain 
Huguenots  departed  from  France.  No  ;  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  few  hundred  thousand,  who  went  forth  to  colo- 
nize and  proseMize,  little  caring,  if  at  all,  what  sacri- 
fices of  principle  were  required  for  success,  the  great 
body  of  India  Buddhism  returned  to  a  partial  compro- 
mise and  an  entire  surrender  to  Hinduism.  Brahman- 
ism did  not  give  up  its  doctrinal  system,  nor  its  hier- 
archy, nor  its  esoteric  teaching,  nor  the  authority  of  the 
Veda.  But  it  dressed  them  a  little  more  decently, 
raised  the  old  Yedic  Vishnu  to  the  Buddha  manifestation 
conception,  finally  adopted  Siddhartha  himself  among 
the  avatars  of  Vishnu,  and  Buddhism  re-entered  the 
old  bonds  in  India,  which  she  had  thrown  off  with  such 
a  tremendous  parade  of  indignation  and  virtue.  With 
such  looseness  of  principle  this  polyandrian  religion, 
called  in  our  day,  "  The  Light  of  Asia,"  was  not  slow 


190  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

in  accommodating  herself  also  to  the  Japanese  Shintoo- 
ism.  In  a  great  flurry  of  excitement  she  rushed  across 
from  China  through  Corea,  and  said  ''  Yes,  yes,"  to  every 
demand  upon  her  principles  from  political  power  or 
from  popular  superstition.  There  she  is  to  be  found 
everywhere  to-day,  courting  on  the  one  hand  the 
materialism  and  infidelity  which  are  working  their  way 
from  America  and  Europe  into  Japan,  and  on  the  other 
hand  presuming  in  her  impudence  to  say  even  to  Chris- 
tianity, "  I  believe  just  as  you  do." 

Senart,  in  his  "  Essai  sur  la  Legende  du  Buddha," 
probably  goes  too  far  in  his  endeavor  to  prove  that  the 
whole  story  of  Buddha  is  a  legend.  Wilson  has  even 
denied  altogether  the  existence  of  Buddha.  Unques- 
tionably the  reputed  history  of  Siddhartha  is  largely  a 
dressing  up  of  the  myth  of  the  Sun-god.  Tiele  affirms 
that  the  narratives  of  his  birth  and  childhood,  independ- 
ently of  their  supernatural  character,  are  doubtful  in  the 
highest  degree.  Siddhartha's  mother  Maya  is  purely 
mythical,  even  as  seems  indicated  by  the  name  itself; 
meaning  "illusion."  The  name  of  the  city,  where  his 
father  is  said  to  have  reigned,  Kapilavastu,  is  unknown 
to  authentic  India  history,  while  it  is  strongly  probable 
that  it  is  the  legendary  application  of  the  name  Kapila, 
the  teacher  of  Sankyaism,  which  in  many  respects  is 
similar  to  the  later  Buddhistic  philosophy.  It  seems 
evident  in  the  kernel  of  historic  truth  amid  the  Buddhis- 
tic legends,  that  the  kingly  or  princely  house  of  Sid- 
dhartha's father,  the  Sakya  Suddhodhana,  was  in  great 
trouble  and  about  to  pass  away.  Indeed  Siddhartha 
lived  to  see  his  native  city  laid  desolate,  and  the  popula- 
tion of  his  own  section  of  country  destroyed.  Right  in 
the  face  of  this  impending  calamity,  fearful  probably  of 
assassination,  the  young  prince  flees  to  another  region. 
Here  he  hides  himself  in  a  school  of  the  Brahmans,  and 
considers  the  question  of  a  future  career.  His  closer 
contact  with  the  leaders  of  Hinduism  discloses  to  him  its 
special  evils  and  awakens  his  hostility.  Born  to  leader- 
ship, he  heads  a  dissatisfied  party,  which  gathers  to  it- 
self rapidly  the  elements  prepared  all  over  India.     He 


NIRVANA    OR    ANNIHILATION. 


191 


proclaifhs  war  against  the  Brahmans  and  the  whole 
theistic  idea ;  suhstitiites  largely  intellectual  mortiiica- 
tions  for  those  of  ih-  flesh  :  interprets  many  of  the  deliv- 
erances of  conscience  with  marvellous  accuracy,  but  masks 
in  them  the  most  consummate  selfishness,  lays  the  foun- 
dation of  the  most  hypocritical  religious  system  of  his- 
tory, and  by  a  "philosophy  run  mad,"— as  my  friend, 
the  learned  Dr.  Edkins,  of  Peking,  does  not  hesitate  to 
call  it,  — adopts  the  most  repelling  of  all  the  ideas  be- 
fore him.  Nirvana.  . 

Within  two  centuries  after  Buddha,  m  the  reign  ot 
Asoka,  this  new  reliofious  philosophy  was  declared  to  be 
the  state  religion  of^ North  India.     Under  this  king  a 
ffreat  council  was  held,  which  resulted  in  sending  mis- 
sionaries  to   the  Mahratta,    Kashmir,    and  Himalayan 
reo-ions,  and  eventually  to  Burmah,  Ceylon,  and  China. 
The  Buddhistic  teachings  in  Ceylon  seem  to  have  re- 
quired no  modification  in  principle  in  order  to  accept- 
ance.    There  to-day  the  faith  is  to  be  found  with  all 
its  atheism,  pessimism,  and  annihilationism.     In  south- 
eastern Asia  a  compromise   is  made  with  polytheistic 
theism,  and  the  eflfort,  as  in  Japan,  is  to  put  something 
into  the  Nirvana  tenet  without,  however,  compromising 
its  equivalency  to  total  extinction  of  being.     In  Tibet 
it  has  in  its  Lamas  living  Buddhas,  who  sway  temporal 
as  well  as  spiritual  powder  under  the  Chinese  authority. 
Here  it  allows  the  worship  of  the  genii  of  the  rivers, 
woods,  hills,  etc.     In  China  Buddhism  encourages  the 
worship  of  ancestors,  and  the  making  of  religious  offer- 
ino-s  to  evil  as  well  as  good  spirits.     I   have  so  often 
seen  its  sanction  given  to  evil  spirit  worship  in  various 
forms,  that  I  have  no  doubt  it  would  feel  perfectly  at 
home  in  Kurdistan,  among  the  "  devil   worshippers, 
with  whom  subsequently  I  spent  a  never-to-be-forgotten 

night.  .  p  ^i.     ^  1 

It  is  difficult  to  give  a  numerical  estimate  ot  the  tol- 
lowers  of  Buddha  at  the  present  time.  It  would  range 
all  the  way  from  one  hundred  millions  to  five  hundred 
millions.  As  already  seen,  we  cannot  start  with  China, 
and  simply  divide  the  population,  as  is  usually  done, 


192  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

crediting  one  half  to  Buddhism.  Nearly  all  are 
Buddhists ;  and  yet  I  believe  they  are  still  more 
thoroughly  Confucianists.  And  Avhen  we  dig  down 
to  the  great  rock-bed  of  the  Chinese  popular  faith,  it 
will  be  found  in  the  Shang-ti  and  Fung-shway  nature 
worship,  that  long  antedated  all  these  religions.  The 
Buddhism  of  Japan  has  more  standing  of  its  own,  but, 
long  before  the  modern  revolution,  the  faith  of  the 
masses  became  largely  affected  by  the  importation  of 
Confucian  and  materialistic  philosophies.  The  material- 
ism of  Europe  and  America  is  feeding  the  new  culture 
of  Japan  more  generally  than  all  other  systems  of  re- 
ligion and  philosophy  combined.  So  in  "the  empire  of 
the  rising  sun  "  Ave  must  include  under  Buddhism  to-day 
either  simply  the  masses  of  the  more  ignorant  of  the 
population,  or  recognizing  the  pliability  and  assimila- 
ting tendency  of  the  system,  and  noting  the  desperate 
efforts  of  leaders  to  get  abreast  of  the  times,  still  esti- 
mate almost  the  whole  nation  as  Buddhistic,  dropping 
Shintooism  to  the  level  of  a  mere  expression  of  national 
patriotism.  Tibet,  Siam,  Burmah,  and  all  south-eastern 
Asia  are  quite  as  much  Animistic  as  Buddhistic ;  yet, 
as  Buddhism  absorbed  their  polydaemonism  and  all  their 
savage  spiritism  and  superstition,  it  is  entitled  to  the 
credit  of  all  their  numbers. 

From  one  year's  close  personal  study  of  Buddhism ; 
from  visits  to  thousands  of  temples,  monasteries,  shrines 
and  priests'  houses,  dedicated  to  the  great  Indian  leader  ; 
from  conversations,  through  interpreters,  Avith  hundreds 
of  its  priests  and  their  folloAvers,  and  from  earnest  ob- 
servations amons:  multitudes  of  this  faith  all  over  east- 
em  and  southern  Asia,  I  must  raise  my  most  solemn 
protest  against  the  popular  estimate  among  certain 
classes  of  Christendom,  that  Buddhism  is  '^the  light  of 
Asia."  Rather,  it  is  its  darkness.  I  believe  that  Asia 
would  be  far  better  off  to-day  had  it  been  possible  for  it 
not  to  have  knoAAm  the  Buddhistic  teaching.  There  Avere 
the  elements  in  Hinduism  in  the  old  Vedic  teachings  for 
a  far  better  reformation  than  Buddhism.  Confucianism, 
sis  I  shall  shoAv,  before  closing  this  chapter,  was  better 


THE    DARKNESS    OF    ASIA.  193 

qualified  to  he  "  the  light  of  Asia,"  and  would  surely 
have  lifted  u})  the  immense  population  farther  out  of 
their  superstitions  and  into  the  enjoyment  of  a  purer 
morality.  Islamism,  with  its  monotheism,  its  hostility 
to  idolatry,  its  candor  and  its  solid  ground  for  moral 
obligation,  has  been  a  better  friend  to  Asia  than  Bud- 
dhism. The  sword  of  the  false  prophet  was  more 
merciful  than  the  adulterous  arms  of  the  great  night- 
walker  of  Asia.  Mahomet  killed  opposition  ;  Buddha 
embraced  it.  Moslemism  sweeps  like  a  conflagration 
over  the  superstitions  of  a  people  ;  Buddhism  flatters 
and  cajoles,  forms  unnatural  unions  with  the  most 
shameful  facility,  caring  but  little  for  the  retention  of 
principles  or  name. 

As  it  has  often  been  observed  by  foreigners  in  visit- 
ing Buddhistic  lands,  there  is  striking  similarity  between 
the  temple  ceremonial  and  that  of  the  Roman  Church. 
There  must  be  some  interdependence  between  the  two 
systems.  Probably  the  Roman  medieval  missionaries 
appeared  to  the  Buddhist  priesthood  to  possess  charms 
of  dress  and  attitude  they  needed  to  adopt  for  the  re- 
tention of  their  conquests,  and  the  making  of  others. 
So  they  commenced  to  crowd  their  temples  with  images 
and  relics,  to  ornament  their  altars  more  elaborately,  to 
endoAv  Kwanon  with  the  mantle  of  the  Virgin,  to  en- 
courage the  use  of  the  rosary,  to  multiply  chants  and 
meaningless  repetitions,  to  burn  incense,  and  to  quite 
generally  adopt  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  new 
faith,  that  was  rivalling  the  old  along  the  dark  highways 
of  Asiatic  life.  And  it  is  very  remarkable  that  we  find 
in  the  Romish  legend  of  St.  Josaphat  the  identical  Bud- 
dhist story  of  Siddartha.  It  will  not  be  surprising  yet 
to  learn  how  that  the  Vedic  Sun-god  and  the  Romish 
saint  conspired  to  surround  the  "sage  of  Sakya"  with 
nearly  all  the  halo  of  his  poetic  glory,  nor  that  the  Bud- 
dhistic writers  borrowed  largely  from  the  New  Testament 
and  early  christian  teaching.  It  appears  very  evident 
that  for  several  centuries  Siddhartha's  instruction  was 
preserved  simply  through  oral  tradition.  It  did  not 
assume  permanent  form  till  probably  two  or  three  cen- 


194  CHRISTIAX    MISSIONS. 

turies  after  Christ.     The  strikincf  resem])lances  then  of 

o 

many  of  his  moral  sayings  to  Holy  Writ  give  presump- 
tion of  relationship.  Yet  here  again  the  letter  killeth 
while  the  spirit  only  giveth  life. 

Pure  Buddhism  is  thoroughly  atheistic,  and  there  is 
no  "light"  in  atheism.  It  is  prol^ably  the  assertion  of 
a  conscious  falsehood,  for  in  the  very  constitution  of 
man's  nature  it  seems  to  be  written ;  There  is  a  God. 
It  would  appear  that  no  system  of  morals  of  any  power 
for  good  could  grow  from  a  soil  so  thoroughly  poisoned. 
This  has  always  proved  so  with  professed  atheists,  who 
have  aimed  nevertheless  at  being  moral  philosophers. 
However  pure  and  beautiful  the  language  of  their  pre- 
cepts, there  has  appeared  a  withering  blight  upon  all 
their  philosophy  and  instructive  sentiments.  In  their 
professed  atheism  the  curse  of  a  conscious  lie  has  fol- 
lowed them  in  all  their  teachino^s.  It  has  been  so  with 
Buddha  and  his  instruction.  Even  in  China,  where  it 
has  lost  more  of  its  atheisti(?  character  than  anywhere 
else,  there  is  ever  the  reassertion  of  the  old  falsehood, 
in  the  sub-human  limitations  given  to  its  divinities. 
When  it  makes  all  its  Fuhs  and  Poosas  superior  to  its 
gods,  and  renders  the  latter  subject  to  birth  and  death, 
it  is  practically  as  atheistic  as  when  Sakya-muni  first 
left  the  shadow  of  the  "bodhi-tree,"  and  hastened  with 
his  message  from  his  '' bodhi-manda "  or  throne  of 
knowledge  to  Varan asi  or  Benares. 

Buddhism  has  interpreted  conscience  with  wonderful 
fulness  and  accuracy.  It  has  even  enunciated  the  prin- 
ciple of  unselfishness  in  maxims  and  counsellings  of 
great  beauty  and  pathos.  But,  after  all,  the  heart  of  all 
its  morality  is  thorough  selfishness.  How  this  is  pos- 
sible, one  need  not  inquire,  who  has  seen  the  murderer 
in  the  court-room  professing  his  horror  at  the  very 
thought  of  murder,  or  the  procuress  for  the  hells  of 
immorality  attitudinizing  with  tearful  indignation  at  the 
suspicion  of  her  immaculateness.  Thieves  are  often 
the  loudest  to  cry,  '^stop  thief,"  and  hypocrites  to  talk 
of  the  highest  virtues  and  the  deepest  pieties.  Because 
Buddha's  words  rival  those  of  any  other  rehgious  phi- 


ATHEISM   AND   SELFISHNESS.  195 

losopher  of  the  world,  and  often  fall  not  short  of  the 
truly  Divine  Master  himself,  the  question  of  the  char- 
acter and  influence  of  those  words  is  not  yet  settled. 
It  makes  a  world  of  difierence  who  utters  them,  and 
what  is  the  spirit  and  purpose  that  are  underneath 
them.  No  prominent  character  in  all  human  history 
has  presented  so  strong  a  contrast  to  the  Christ  of 
Christianity,  who  came  "not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but 
to  minister."  Buddha  never  emptied  himself  of  self. 
The  gaining  of  personal  merit  was  the  absorbing  thought 
of  his  life.  He  trod  the  weary  way  for  himself,  and 
sought  a  fancied  good  beyond  only  for  himself.  Bud- 
dhism has  no  real  sympathy,  no  ambition  but  a  selfish 
one. 

In  conversation  with  a  Buddhist  priest,  I  asked, 
"  What  would  be  his  motive  in  saving  his  own  brother 
whom  he  §aw  drowning  ?  "  He  replied  that  there  would 
be  ''great  merit  in  it."  He  had  no  other  conception  of 
a  motive  to  right  action,  than  that  it  was  meritorious. 
LikcAvise  I  have  tried  to  fathom  the  motive  depths  of 
many  Buddhists,  and,  in  proportion  as  they  have  imbibed 
the  spirit  of  their  system,  the  more  utterly  destitute 
they  seemed  to  be  of  any  leading  thought  beyond  them- 
selves for  either  this  life  or  the  life  to  come.  Buddhism 
is  so  thoroughly  selfish,  that  gratitude  vanishes  in  its 
presence.  The  Burmese  have  no  word  for  ''thank  you." 
The  priesthood  never  acknowledge  the  gifts  of  the  peo- 
ple, but  receive  in  perfect  silence  and  apparent  indif- 
ference. Enough  for  the  giver  —  he  gets  his  merit. 
Yes,  Buddhism  inculcates  "high  morality."  You  must 
not  steal.  Why? — because  it  is  not  right?  As  a  rule 
Buddha  and  his  followers  never  think  of  that.  Because 
to  steal  would  wrong  others  ?  That  is  not  in  their  phil- 
osophy. Every  man  for  himself  is  their  all-sovereign 
principle.  But  whoever  refrains  from  stealing  does 
something  worthy  for  himself.  He  takes  a  step  toward 
Nirvana.  He  has  ju^t  so  much  more  conceit  of  self- 
righteousness.  The  Buddhist  philosophy  is  not  to  care 
for  the  moral  quality  of  an  action,  but  to  consider  that 
it  pays  him  best,  and  to  keep  well  his  account.     They 


196  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

will  take  pity  on  a  starving  wretch  and  give  him  bread, 
but  then  rejoice  only  in  the  good  they  have  done  them- 
selves. 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  task  to  strip  off  the  mask  of  vir- 
tue and  find  the  vice ;  to  remove  the  lamb's  fleece  and 
reveal  the  wolf.  But  Buddhism  requires  it.  Truth 
demands  it  in  our  day,  when  so  many  in  christian  lands 
are  being  deluded  with  rose-colored  views  of  this  most 
dangerous  of  all  heathen  religions.  No  religious  sys- 
tem of  the  world  "  borrows  so  much  of  the  livery  of 
heaven  to  serve  the  devil  in."  And  this  chiefly  because 
it  is  thorough  selfishness  at  its  core,  and  the  very 
quintessence  of  hypocrisy  in  what,  to  the  superficial 
gaze,  are  its  most  beautiful  manifestations.  A  system 
that  tells  a  man  he  should  refrain  from  lying  and  adul- 
tery, simply  because  it  is  to  his  advantage,  that  he 
should  never  murder  nor  turn  his  cold  shoulder  to  the 
needy  because  it  will  pay  him  in  the  long  run,  that  in 
reality  no  consideration  of  the  rights  or  the  good  of 
others  is  ever  to  weigh  with  him  for  a  moment,  such  a 
system  is  not  calculated  to  be  ''  the  light "  to  eight 
hundred  millions  of  people.  As  Buddhism  has  no 
ground  for  moral  obligation  except  in  self-interest ;  as 
it  parades  the  various  philanthropies  without  any  love 
for  anybody  but  self;  as  it  lays  great  stress  upon  unsel- 
fishness of  action,  at  the  same  time  declaring  its  sole 
motive  personal  merit,  we  fail  to  find  language  to  ex- 
press our  detestation  of  the  hypocritical  system.  It  is 
only  a  masquerade  of  the  virtues.  Strip  off*  the  many 
beautiful  masks  of  Buddhistic  morals,  and  there  is 
nothing  left  that  is  attractive  in  its  real  spirit  and 
character. 

Buddhism  reckons  sin  only  as  a  misfortune.  It  has 
no  conception  of  guilt.  A  sick  man  will  say  of  his 
sickness,  "  It  is  my  sin."  It  may  be  directly  the  conse- 
quence of  immoral  action,  but  he  seems  unable  to  so 
recognize  it.  If  cornered  by  conscience  to  even  par- 
tially recognize  a  guilt  in  this  life,  he  has  recourse  at 
once  to  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  and  excuses 
himself  by  declaring  it  must  have  been  a  sin  in  some 
previous  form  of  existence. 


RABID   PESSIMISM.  197 

A  Buddhist's  views  of  life  iire  sombre  in  the  extreme. 
He  is  a  thorough-going  pessimist.  All  activity  is  an 
evil.  Even  doing  good  is  an  evil,  only  it  is  the  less 
one,  in  that  it  l^rings  a  measure  of  merit  to  the  good 
doer.  The  discharge  of  all  the  duties  of  life  are  ren- 
dered a  dreary  task  by  denying  the  accompanying  relish 
of  heart-work.  The  wife  toils  for  her  husband  that 
perhaps  she  may  be  a  man  in  the  next  state  of  her 
transmigration,  and  ultimately  move  farther  along  "  the 
way  "  toward  Nirvana.  Buddhism  would  even  dry  up 
the  fountain  of  a  mother's  affection  for  her  children,  in 
making  her  ministrations  to  them  a  mere  selfish  grasp- 
ingr  after  credit-marks  on  the  books  of  the  death-o^od — 
Yama.  This  is  one  of  the  gods  Buddhism  borrowed 
from  Hinduism  and  introduced  to  the  Chinese  under  the 
name  of  Yen-lo-w\ang.  The  Buddhist  sacred  books 
do  not  say  much  about  him,  but  the  people  will  always 
use  his  name  when  speaking  of  death  and  future  judg- 
ment. Merit-marks  recorded  by  him  are  Avhat  Buddhism 
teaches  should  be  the  uppermost  thought  of  the  mother 
bending  over  her  sick  child,  of  a  sister  seeking  to  re- 
strain a  wayward  brother  from  crime,  of  a  citizen  when 
dispensing  his  charities  to  the  poor.  A  man  must  be  a 
pessimist  when  thus  his  life  is  deprived  of  all  its  joys. 
Everything  must  appear  doleful  to  him,  when  there  is 
no  heart  to  be  put  into  it  for  the  sake  of  others.  Exist- 
ence, which  is  only  a  perpetual  scramble  for  self,  even 
in  the  attempted  use  of  the  most  charming  virtues  the 
conscience  can  suggest,  is  surely  only  repelling,  and 
from  it  Nirvana  is  a  welcome  repose. 

We  are  surprised  that  hostility  to  evangelical  Christi- 
anity and  to  the  cause  of  foreign  missions  has  not 
selected  Confucianism  instead  of  Buddhism  as  the  light 
of  Asia.  The  only  two  missionaries  I  met  in  Asia,  who 
had  abandoned  Christianity  and  gone  over  to  the  enemy, 
passed  by  the  claims  of  Buddha,  and  the  one  has  be- 
come a  Hindu  and  the  other  a  Confucianist.  Confu- 
cianism is  not  positively  atheistic ;  it  only  pleads  igno- 
rance of  God,  and  is  always  consistent.  It  looks  upon 
life  cheerfully.     All  its  good  moral  actions  are  duties  to 


198  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

be  discharged  because  they  are  right,  irrespective  of 
any  benefit  supposed  to  be  derived.  Confucianism  is 
not  hypocrisy.  It  does  not  fan  the  flame  of  every 
superstition  and  stoop  to  every  contrivance  for  proselyt- 
ism,  but  strives  mostly  to  attend  to  the  practical  duties 
of  this  life.  It  does  not  smother  the  sense  of  guilt  in 
conscience  by  the  excuse  of  mere  misfortune.  And  a 
general  comparison  of  the  actual  fruits  will  confirm  this 
judgment.  Indeed,  of  all  the  Christless  religions  of 
Asia,  Buddhism  has  been  the  least  successful  m  the 
development  of  nobility  of  character.  And  its  litera- 
ture, deducting  what  it  probably  stole  from  the  Bible,  is 
the  most  poverty-stricken  and  stupid. 

We  must  not  dwell  longer  upon  this  subject,  nor  in 
treating  upon  the  religions  of  China  more  than  mention 
the  presence  of  one  or  two  millions  of  Moslems  among 
her  populations,  and  pass  on,  only  saying  that,  if  this 
argument  in  any  measure  fails  to  substantiate  the  view 
here  taken  of  Buddhism,  I  have  not  failed  to  give  my 
honest  personal  impressions  from  exceptional  oppor- 
tunities. 


CATHOLIC  AND  PROTESTANT  LABORERS.     199 


CHAPTER  Xni. 

CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS   IN  CHINA. 

XQUESTIOXABLY  the  missions  of  Prot- 
estantism are  not  to  be  credited  with  all 
the  christian  influences  which  have  been 
exerted  in  the  past  and  are  working  to- 
day in  China.  Roman  Catholic  efforts, 
notwithstanding  all  the  accompanying  er- 
rors of  doctrine  and  practice,  have  con- 
tributed a  very  important  factor  to  the  ultimate  evan- 
gelization of  these  four  hundred  millions  of  people. 
The  aggregate  of  all  the  missionary  operations  being 
carried  on  by  the  various  branches  of  the  Protestant 
Christian  Church  has  come  to  be  very  much  greater 
than  those  under  the  oversight  of  the  Catholic  propa- 
ganda, although  we  have  no  display  of  ecclesiastical 
property  to  compare  with  that  of  Rome  at  Shanghai, 
Canton,  Peking,  and  Han-kow,  and  although  the  number 
of  missionaries  employed  by  each  are  about  equal.  Our 
missionaries  may  not  be  harder  worked,  but  they  have 
better  access  to  the  people,  their  literary  standing  and 
labors  are  far  in  advance,  the  native  agencies  they  em- 
ploy are  much  more  effective,  and  then  most  of  the 
Catholic  missionaries  are  French  and  Italian,  while  the 
Protestant  missionaries  are  chiefly  English,  Scotch, 
American  and  German.  A  comparative  study  of  their  la- 
bors shows  also  that  there  is  more  inspiration  given  by 
the  feeling  of  dail}^  accountability  directly  to  the  Divine 
Head  himself,  than  by  the  subordination  to  human 
authority  and  the  constant  anxiety  to  obey  human 
directions,  although  the  authority  may  be  deemed  infal- 
lible, and  the  obedience  ])e  rendered  in  the  spirit  of 


200  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

true  godly  piety.  Besides,  the  complicated  ceremonial- 
ism of  the  Romish  chm-ch  is  a  clog  upon  the  earnest 
evangelizing  efforts  of  many  of  its  missionaries.  The 
real  work,  the  work  that  tells  in  leading  heathen  to  a 
knoAvledge  of  Christ,  is  the  direct  preaching  of  the 
Word  and  personal  religious  conversation.  The  Cath- 
olic missionary  finds  much  of  his  precious  time  occu- 
pied with  the  celebration  of  masses,  the  reading  of 
Latin  rituals,  and  the  attention  to  a  cumbrous  ecclesias- 
tical machinery,  which  in  itself  is  even  more  out  of 
place  in  China  than  in  Europe  and  America. 

There  is  more  than  mere  sincerity  on  the  part  of  many 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  missionaries  in  China.  I  have 
seen  unmistakable  evidences  of  the  presence  of  God's 
Spirit  working  in  them  and  through  them  to  the  accom- 
plishment, we  must  believe,  of  His  own  gracious  pur- 
poses. Their  errors  of  faith  and  practice  will  not  be 
allowed  to  undo  any  genuine  labor  in  the  Gospel  of  love 
to  God  and  to  perishing  souls.  Their  most  harmful 
doctrine  is  the  worship  of  the  Virgin,  which  finds  very 
ready  acceptance  on  the  part  of  those  who  have  been 
accustomed  to  pay  devotions  to  Kwanon.  It  is  not 
practicable  to  press  the  doctrine  of  penance  to  the 
extent  to  which  Europe  is  familiar,  and  so  in  Catholic 
proclamation  of  the  Gospel  in  China  there  is  a  larger 
measure  of  fidelity  to  the  all-suflSciency  of  Christ's 
Atonement  as  a  ground  for  merit  in  salvation.  The 
three  hundred  years  nearly  of  experience  which  Rome 
has  had  in  China  has  taught  her  some  lessons,  which 
are  proving  valuable  at  the  present  time,  not  simply  to 
the  spread  of  the  great  hierarchical  power,  but  also  to 
the  advancement  of  the  cause  of  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus 
throughout  this  vast  empire.  The  policy  of  intermed- 
dling with  the  political  affairs  of  the  country  received  a 
severe  blow,  when  finally  in  1822  the  last  Jesuits  em- 
ployed in  the  imperial  tribunal  of  astronomy  at  Peking 
were  dismissed,  sent  to  Macao,  and  told  that  China 
would  never  more  have  any  use  for  them.  Since  court 
favor  was  thus  withdrawn,  very  few  of  the  educated 
and  powerful  have  followed  the  steps  of  Seu-kwang-ke 


LA   PLACE    OF    PEKING.  201 

and  other  prominent  Chinese  Catholics,  and  during  the 
past  two  generations  most  of  their  missionary  labor  has 
been  among  the  poorer  classes.  Particularly  in  the  vil- 
lages throughout  the  eastern  provinces  they  have  done 
an  immense  amount  of  itinerating  work. 

The  French  Catholic  Bishop  La  Place  of  Peking  told 
me  that  his  church  had  in  China  thirty-two  bishops  and 
nearly  half  a  million  members.  There  were  a  few  over 
three  hundred  foreign  missionaries  associated  with  these 
head  pastors,  besides  several  scores  of  Sisters  of  Mercy 
who  are  employed  in  schools  and  hospitals.  As  to  the 
number  of  members,  probably  as  large  figures  could  be 
given  by  the  united  Protestant  body,  if  all  should  be 
reckoned,  not  only  the  communicants,  but  also  all  their 
consenting  families,  all  pupils  in  schools  and  all  who 
send  them,  and  all  who  frequent  the  public  religious 
services.  This  bishop  had  not  been  to  Europe  since 
the  last  ecumenical  council  at  Rome,  and  he  told  me  he 
never  wished  to  take  another  vacation  from  his  work, 
which  he  loved  better  than  home — better  than  life. 
"When  I  die,"  he  said,  "1  prefer  to  be  buried  where 
I  have  been  laboring  these  thirty-five  years  in  the  cause 
of  Christ."  He  took  me  all  over  his  school  and  printing 
establishment,  and  was  free  to  give  from  his  own  books 
and  papers  what  was  evidently  a  candid  statement  of  the 
condition  of  evangelization  in  China  from  his  point  of 
view.  I  met  others  of  the  Catholic  clergy,  some  of 
them  livins:  lives  of  o-reat  self-denial,  out  in  the  most 
lonesome  and  dismal  parts  of  the  mission  field,  support- 
ing themselves  with  less  than  the  least  that  is  paid  to 
any  of  the  Protestant  missionaries,  wnth  the  exception 
of  a  few  of  those  connected  w^th  the  "China  Inland 
Mission."  Catholic  missionaries  in  China  have  many 
times  witnessed  for  the  faith  with  their  own  blood,  and 
not  a  few  of  their  native  converts  have  heroically  en- 
dured the  loss  of  property  and  banishment  to  Western 
Tartary. 

While,  however,  it  is  thus  evident  that  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  is  exertino:  a  o:reat  influence  ao^ainst  the 
superstitions  and  idolatries  of  China ;  and  is  proclaiming, 


202  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

despite  all  her  errors,  a  vast  deal  of  Christian  truth  that 
is  saving  multitudes  from  eternal  death  ;  Protestant  evan- 
gelization, with  its  purer  doctrines,  and  holier  living,  and 
more  directly  and  unqualifiedly  divine  leadership,  must 
expect  to  encounter  its  bitter  and  vigilant  hostilities. 

Already  since  our  various  missions,  from  the  time  of 
the  Nan-King  treaty  (1842),  hut  more  especially  from 
that  of  Tientsin  (1860),  have  been  scattering  the  truth  so 
generally  throughout  the  land,  the  precautionary  direc- 
tions have  been  issued  by  bishops  and  priests  to  all  their 
numerous  convents.  They  have  been  told  that  the 
English  religion  is  only  three  hundred  years  old  ;  that  it 
began  with  Henry  VIII.,  because  the  Pope  Avould  not 
allow  him  to  divorce  his  wife ;  and  that  the  only  salva- 
tion is  in  the  old  Catholic  belief  which  reaches  back  to 
Christ  himself.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  great  body  of 
Rome's  missionaries  in  China  know  any  better,  nor  that 
one  in  ten  of  them  ever  heard  that  celibacy  for  all 
priests  w^as  not  demanded  until  the  eleventh  century. 
Our  various  translations  of  the  Scriptures  are  very  much 
opposed  by  them,  and  yet  they  have  not  ventured  with 
even  one  translation  of  their  own  version.  They  have 
a  dispensation  from  the  Pope  to  allow  secular  work 
upon  the  Sabbath  after  morning  mass  in  their  chapels, 
which  has  its  influence  both  for  evil  and  good  upon 
Protestant  converts.  The  members  generally  of  the 
native  Catholic  communities  treat  Protestants  very  civ- 
illy, and  are  quite  ready  to  exchange  religious  views 
with  them,  but  the  native  priests  have  already  become 
very  hostile.  There  is  a  quite  large  and  flourishing  Cath- 
olic school  at  Seu-kia-wei,  seven  miles  from  Shanghai, 
where  however  it  is  saddening  to  see  European  professed 
christians  teaching  the  students  to  form  images  of  Joseph 
and  Mary  and  other  Scripture  characters,  sure  to  be 
snares  to  this  great  idolatrous  people. 

Up  to  eighteen  years  ago  the  native  Catholic  commu- 
nities did  very  little  aggressive  work  among  the  surround- 
ing heathen,  but  confined  themselves  to  the  religious  care 
and  education  of  their  own  families,  the  descendants  of 
the  first  Jesuit  converts.    The  government  persecutions 


LIBERTY   or  TRAVEL.  203 

were  successful  in  either  scattering  them,  or  compelling 
the  most  quiet  practice  of  their  religion.  Their  mis- 
sionaries from  Europe  were  conveyed  secretly  into  the 
interior  by  converts  in  closed  boats  or  sedan  chairs,  and 
their  presence  was  kept  as  hidden  as  possible.  None 
were  permitted  to  see  "the  spiritual  father  from  the 
western  ocean,"  until  they  had  been  thoroughly  instructed 
and  were  ready  for  baptism.  Hue,  in  his  "Travels 
in  Tartary  and  Tibet,"  makes  mention  of  the  delightful 
sense  of  freedom  which  he  and  his  associates  experienced 
when  they  passed  the  great  wall  and  left  the  necessary 
secrecy  in  China  behind. 

However,  now,  especially  since  the  late  Chefoo  Con- 
vention, hastened  by  the  murder  of  Mr.  Margary,  there 
is  perfect  liberty  to  travel  throughout  China,  and  Cath- 
olics as  well  as  Protestants  are  largely  availing  them- 
selves of  the  opportunity.  It  is  probable  that  the 
former  are  doing  the  more  itinerating  among  the  myriad 
villages  of  the  interior.  They  have  no  family  ties,  and 
the  customary  laxities  of  bachelorhood  enable  the  mis- 
sionary priest  to  put  up  with  more  squalor  and  wretched- 
ness, and  hence  to  work  more  among  the  outlying 
populations.  The  constant  itinerating,  which  most  of 
them  do,  covers  a  multitude  of  centres  of  rural  popula- 
tion, and  enables  the  priesthood  to  evade  the  law  against 
permanency  of  residence  outside  of  the  treaty  ports  and 
other  places  for  which  special  permission  has  been 
granted. 

While,  however,  the  Catholics  in  China  have  de- 
cided advantage  over  Protestant  missions  in  the  matter 
of  itinerating  throughout  the  country,  I  am  confident 
that  this  is  far  overbalanced  in  our  favor  by  the  chris- 
tian homes  of  our  stations,  the  married  state  of  our 
male  missionaries,  and  the  necessary  concentration  of 
our  work  around  a  comparatively  limited  number  of 
centres.  With  christian  homes  thickly  scattered  about 
in  more  than  two-thirds  of  all  the  communities  in 
christian  countries,  it  is  not  strange  that  many,  deeply 
interested  in  foreign  missions,  should  deplore  the  ex- 
pense incurred  by  women  and  children,  and  the  large 


204  CHEISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

proportion  of  time  they  require  from  the  husband  and 
father  missionary.  Our  greatest  blessings  we  do  not 
appreciate  until  we  are  deprived  of  them.  The  value 
of  the  christian  family  relation  in  home  evangelization, 
the  support  it  gives  to  the  ministry,  its  constant  argu- 
ment and  illustration  of  the  spirit  and  beauty  of  re- 
vealed truth,  — these  are  not  thought  of  as  they  deserve. 
The  husband  returns  at  night  from  his  store  or  shop  or 
field  to  his  christian  home.  The  pleasures  and  dissipa- 
tions of  the  world  cannot  tempt  him  aside.  His  lips  are 
firmly  set  against  the  allurements  of  the  bar-room  and 
the  solicitations  of  those  whose  steps  take  hold  on 
death.  The  constant  love  of  that  wife,  whose  attrac- 
tions only  increase  to  him  with  the  fadings  of  beauty 
and  the  wrinklings  of  care, — it  speaks  volumes  for  the 
leading  principles  of  their  lives.  The  children  of  that 
home,  reared  in  its  atmosphere  of  piety,  accustomed  to 
kneel  at  the  family  altar  daily,  and  to  bow  the  head 
while  the  blessing  is  asked  before  every  meal,  they 
carry  with  them  as  a  rule  proofs  the  world  cannot  gain- 
say of  the  value  of  Christianity.  In  America,  Great 
Britain  and  Germany,  it  is  not  the  pulpit  as  our  greatest 
hope  that  stands  over  against  millions  of  bar-rooms, 
brothels  and  gambling-halls,  nor  the  Sunday-school, 
nor  christian  literature,  nor  philanthropic  organizations 
and  enterprise,  but  under  God  the  blessed  influence  of 
millions  of  christian  homes,  irradiating  the  social  dark- 
ness with  their  heavenly  light,  repelling  vice,  and 
attracting  by  their  nameless  charms  the  tempted  and 
the  weary,  the  losing  and  the  lost. 

There  is  no  more  useful  a  Gospel  light  which  chris- 
tian missions  can  set  up  to-day  in  heathen  lands  than  a 
christian  home.  Such  are  the  social  customs,  such  the 
degradation  of  woman,  and  such  the  merciless  slavery 
of  female  children,  that  no  greater  contrast  can  be  fur- 
nished among  pagan  and  idolatrous  populations  than  by  a 
missionary  surrounded  with  his  own  family  life.  There 
are  times  and  places  which  call  for  the  freedom  of  the 
unmarried  male  missionary.  There  is  pioneer  work  to- 
day in  Western  China  and  in  Central  Africa,  which  re- 


mrLUENCE    OF   CHRISTIAN   HOMES.  205 

quires  an  extent  and  rapidity  of  itinerancy,  incompatible 
with  family  responsibilities.  But  generally  speaking,  all 
along  the  sea-coasts  and  navigable  inland  waters,  and 
for  many  miles  inland  everywhere,  the  evangelizing  re- 
quirements of  the  various  districts  are  not  such  as  to 
warrant  the  neglect  of  the  christian  family  influence. 
Not  one  native  in  a  hundred  has  any  idea  that  an  un- 
married man  can  live  a  strictly  moral  life.  It  is  quite 
the  custom  of  parents  to  provide  their  boys  at  puberty 
with  mistresses.  The  male  celibates  of  the  missionary 
ranks  invariably  encounter  such  a  public  sentiment 
everywhere,  that  it  must  go  very  far  to  counteract  the 
good  of  the  increased  celerity  of  their  movements  and 
amount  of  labor.  It  is  somewhat  different  with  unmar- 
ried women  missionaries.  The  female  honor,  though 
not  for  virtue's  sake,  is  often  guarded  in  heathen  lands 
as  man's  choicest  treasure.  Besides,  the  modest  wom- 
an's missionary  work  will  be  chiefly  among  those  of 
her  own  sex,  where  both  the  circumstances  and  the 
natural  instincts  grant  to  the  christian  toiler  a  bet- 
ter moral  standing,  and,  therefore,  much  greater  ad- 
vantage in  securing  religious  impressions.  It  is  very 
questionable  whether,  to  the  established  mission  stations, 
or  to  within  many  miles  of  them,  men  should  now  be 
sent  unaccompanied  with  their  wives. 

Many  difficulties,  I  am  well  aware,  present  themselves 
at  once  to  this  suggestion.  Young  men,  who  feel  called 
to  the  foreign  work,  sometimes,  when  ready  to  go,  have 
not  found  their  mate  in  a  young  christian  woman  filled 
with  the  same  missionary  zeal.  Children  must,  as  a 
rule,  come  home  to  be  reared  and  educated.  This  re- 
quires more  years  than  the  male  missionary  can  afford 
to  spend  oflT  from  his  work.  Must  the  wife  then  remain 
away  from  her  husband  for  from  three  to  ten  years  ? 
Many,  alas,  so  many  missionary  wives  die  early  upon 
the  foreign  field.  Shall  the  bereaved  prolong  his 
widowerhood,  or  is  it  best  that  soon  all  the  sacrifices 
required  should  be  made,  for  him  to  fill  the  vacancy 
in  his  household,  to  avoid  scandal,  to  allay  any  sus- 
picion   in   the  heathen  community,  and  to  keep   np  a 


206  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

bright  social  light  and  life  among  the  converts.  Better 
the  young  man  wait  a  year  or  two,  making  matrimony 
his  prayerful  business,  than  that  he  hasten  to  some 
heathen  community  as  a  missionary  shorn  of  half  his 
strength.  Better  that  more  christian  homes  in  christian 
lands  be  ready  to  receive  the  children  of  missionaries  as 
their  own  to  rear  for  the  Lord,  or  that  liberal  provisions 
be  made  for  home-like  boarding  schools,. or  homes  near 
schools,  as  at  Auburndale  and  Newton  Centre,  under 
the  most  competent  care,  for  those  whose  parents  are 
toiling  for  the  distant  heathen,  than  that  a  husband  be 
left  long  alone  to  awaken  the  inevitable  suspicions  of 
the  heathen,  to  scandalize  the  girls  in  their  schools  and 
their  female  converts,  to  have  no  home  as  an  illustration 
and  proof  of  his  preaching,  and  no  daily  support  and 
counsel  such  as  only  a  good  wife  can  give  him.  Better 
that  widowers  be  enabled  to  return  to  their  native 
lands  immediately  upon  their  bereavements,  than  that 
they  await  for  their  embarrassments  to  interfere  with  the 
work  God  has  placed  upon  some  unmarried  woman 
missionary  in  the  foreign  field.  Generally  missionary 
widows  find  themselves  by  the  decease  of  their  hus- 
bands, the  unfinished  work  they  leave,  and  by  the  social 
safeguards  and  opportunities  of  widowhood  in  heathen- 
dom, in  the  presence  of  responsibilities  they  should  not 
resign,  to  save  a  widower  missionary  a  year  or  two 
vacation  and  the  mission  treasury  the  extra  travelling 
expense.  And  it  is  a  cruel  libel  upon  the  young  un- 
married missionary  women  to  declare  that  they  have 
gone  to  foreign  lands  to  watch  their  matrimonial  chances 
there.  It  has  been  our  privilege  to  become  acquainted 
personally  with  a  majority  of  them,  and  we  do  not  be- 
lieve in  the  whole  world  can  be  found  an  equal  number 
of  christians  who  have  laid  themselves  body  and  soul 
more  completely  upon  the  consecration  altar  of  their 
work.  That  occasionally  and  almost  frequently  we 
hear  of  their  marriages  to  missionary  widowers,  and  to 
young  men  who  have  gone  out  alone  and  discovered 
their  mistake,  does  not  detract  from  the  quality  of  con- 
secration which  this  noble  sisterhood  have  manifested. 


SINGLE    WOMEN    MISSIONARIES.  207 

The  situation  becomes  peculiar  and  utterly  unantici- 
pated, when,  in  the  loneliness  they  sometimes  feel  and 
can  never  tell,  —  God  only  knows  it,  — and  in  the  desper- 
ate emergency  so  frequently  sprung  upon  the  single, 
male  missionary  in  his  church,  his  school,  his  com- 
munity, our  sister  is  implored  to  come  to  the  rescue  of 
the  interests  of  their  common  Master.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  this  sisterhood  would  quite  unanimously  vote  that 
this  necessity  be  laid  upon  them  as  seldom  as  possible. 

Let  me  introduce  the  reader  to  a  Catholic  school  in 
Ningpo.  It  is  a  refuge  for  deserted  female  children. 
Nearly  a  hundred  will  be  found  within  its  new  and  exten- 
sive buildings,  well  situated  just  outside  the  city's  south 
gate.  The  school  is  in  charge  of  eight  or  ten  French 
Sisters  of  ^lercy.  The  graves  of  a  number  of  their 
companions  are  to  be  found  in  the  adjoining  yard.  They 
have  charge  also  of  a  free  dispensary  for  the  poor  of  the 
neighborhood.  I  saw  a  similar  Catholic  institution  at 
Peking,  and  they  are  to  he  found  at  quite  a  number  of 
populous  centres  in  China.  But  the  unmarried  sisters  of 
Protestant  missions  are  doing  a  better  work,  over  and 
above  the  far  greater  lidelity  of  their  oral  teachings  to 
the  Word  of  God.  Their  bearing  is  not  that  of  auster- 
ity. They  do  not  appear  to  the  people  to  be  treading 
the  path  of  severe  discipline.  They  carry  to  the  pupils 
in  their  schools  and  to  the  families  of  their  visitations 
the  impression  of  a  religion  that  is  cheerful,  full  of  glad- 
ness, and  lightening  rather  than  making  more  heavy  the 
burdens  of  life.  Their  dress  is  more  attractive,  and 
their  retention  of  the  modest  ways  and  charms  of  young 
womanhood  give  them  much  greater  influence  for  good. 
The  irrevocable  vows  of  celil)acy  are  not  upon  them„ 
and  hence  they  act  naturally  under  due  christian  reserve. 
Their  views  and  teachings  to  women  and  children  are 
not  blurred  and  impracticable.  They  have  no  inclina- 
tion to  discourage  fitmily  life,  or  to  teach  that  the  high- 
est virtues  cannot  be  cultivated  around  the  home  altar. 
It  has  been  suggested,  particularly  in  England  and 
Germany,  that  our  single  women  missionaries  should  be 
formed  into  close  sisterhoods,  and  be  required  to  take 


208  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

VOWS  similar  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Sisters  of  Mercy. 
But  it  would  be  a  great  calamity.  The  saving  of  a  few 
now  and  then  from  matrimony  would  not  compensate  at 
all  for  the  consecrated  naturalness  of  their  christian  ser- 
vice, their  healthful  and  practical  influence  over  the 
native  women  and  their  children,  and  for  the  lessons 
they  are  gradually  giving  also  to  the  native  masculine 
community  that  true  life  can  be  sustained  by  principle, 
without  the  walls  of  a  monastery  and  the  surveillance  of 
ecclesiastical  police.  Only  this  should  be  guarded,  that 
those  who  q-q  out  sino^le  from  the  christian  women 
of  the  home  lands  to  lift  up  their  degraded  sisters  in 
heathendom,  should  not  go  too  young.  Better  err  on 
the  side  of  maturity  and  experience.  Selection  should 
be  made  not  only  of  those  young  women  who  have 
health,  vigor,  intelligence  and  education,  but  also  of 
those  who  have  considered  well  the  social  question,  and 
are  thoroughly  prepared  with  God's  help  to  meet  the 
lonely  drudgery  that  is  probably  awaiting  them  to  the 
end  of  life. 

In  China  there  are  at  work  to-day  twenty-nine  mis- 
sionary societies,  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  ordained 
missionaries  and  sixty-three  unmarried  female  teachers. 
Thirteen  of  these  societies  are  British,  with  seventy- 
eight  of  the  married  and  forty-four  of  the  unmarried 
missionaries.  Eleven  of  them  are  American,  with 
seventy-seven  married,  and  fifty-six  unmarried.  Two 
of  the  societies  are  European,  with  twenty-two  married, 
and  forty-four  unmarried  missionaries.  This  goodly 
number  of  our  evangelizing  laborers  in  the  Bible-land  of 
Sinim,  yet  so  few  compared  with  China's  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions, are  located  at  ninety-one  central  stations,  and  have 
besides  in  charge  five  hundred  and  eleven  out-stations. 
There  are  now  nearly  four  hundred  Chinese  Protestant 
churches,  with  not  far  from  eighteen  thousand  com- 
municants, and  seventy-five  thousand  legitimately  to  be 
included  adherents.  A  score  of  the  native  churches  are 
entirely  self-supporting ;  nearly  two-thirds  of  them  are 
partially  so.  The  statistics  which  Professor  Christlieb 
has  gathered  tell  us  that  among  those  churches  there  are 


REVIEW    OF   FIELD    FORCES.  209 

laboring  at  present  seventy-three  native  ordained  pas- 
tors and  preachers,  five  hundred  and  eleven  assistant 
preachers,  seventy-one  colporteurs,  and  ninety  Bible- 
women.  There  are  twenty  theological  schools,  with  tw^o 
hundred  and  thirty-one  students  ;  thirty  higher  boarding- 
schools  for  boys,  with  six  hundred  and  eleven  scholars ; 
thirty-eight  for  girls,  with  seven  hun  Ired  and  seventy- 
seven  scholars ;  one  hundred  and  seventy-seven  day- 
schools  for  boys,  with  four  thousand  to  five  thousand  in 
attendance ;  and  eighty-two  for  girls,  with  thirteen  hun- 
dred and  seven  under  instructions.  There  are  also  six- 
teen missionary  hospitals,  with  twenty-four  dispensaries. 
This  contrast  is  very  great  with  only  thirty-seven  years 
ago,  when  we  had  but  six  converts  in  all  China.  Dr. 
Legge,  at  the  Mildma}^  Conference  in  London,  reckoned 
that  at  the  present  rate  of  progress,  there  would  be  in 
this  vast  ^'Middle  Kingdom"  by  the  year  1913,  26,000,- 
000  communicants,  and  about  100,000,000  adherents  to 
the  Protestant  Christian  fiiith. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  classify  the  diflferent  missionary 
societies  according  to  the  apparent  magnitude  of  their 
work  in  China.  The  relative  number  of  missionaries 
and  of  stations  is  not  a  satisfactory  standard.  The 
amount  of  money  expended  l)y  each  comparatively  is 
much  less  so.  The  tables  of  converts,  numbers  at 
preaching  services,  attendance  at  mission  schools,  etc., 
etc.,  do  not  serve  our  purpose.  Nor  are  we  at  liberty 
in  this  volume  to  consider  the  question  of  the  relative 
importance  to  mission  Avork  of  any  of  the  distinctive 
doctrines  and  practices  of  the  various  branches  of  the 
evangelical  Protestant  Church.  On  this  subject  we  have 
strong  convictions,  but  it  was  our  special  desire  on  this 
world  tour  of  Christian  missions  to  see  all  for  all ;  to 
gather  up  those  impressions  in  which  all  of  the  house- 
hold of  faith  are  equally  interested,  not  by  way  of  con- 
troversy, but  of  united  sympathy,  prayer,  and  sacrifice. 
Therefore,  here  as  in  other  lands,  I .  will  the  rather 
report  some  of  the  leading  features  of  the  common  work, 
which  in  the  providence  of  God  have  fallen  to  the  va- 
rious branches  of  His  Church.     These  will  be  introduc- 


210  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

tions  to  bird's-eye  glances  at  the  situation  of  their 
several  missions. 

A  most  striking  feature  of  christian  evangelization  in 
China  is  the  American  Presbyterian  Press  Establish- 
ment at  Shanghai.  Indeed  this  publishing  house, 
although  owned  and  controlled  by  the  Presbyterian 
Mission,  is  equivalent  to  an  union  enterprise,  since  its 
publication  of  Bibles  and  religious  books  is  chiefly  for 
other  missionary  societies,  from  which  such  compensa- 
tion is  required  as  to  amount  to  only  a  very  little  over 
the  actual  cost.  Last  year  the  number  of  volumes  of 
Scripture  printed  in  whole  or  in  part  was  314,000; 
pages,  nearly  26,000,000.  Of  tracts,  168,700  volumes  ; 
pages,  4,672,500.  Miscellaneous  books,  226,763  vol- 
umes;  pages,  5,338,351.  Total,  709,463  volumes; 
pages,  nearly  36,000,000.  The  net  gain  to  the  estab- 
lishment, not  counting  interest  upon  investment,  was 
about  $4000.  As  this  would  proJiably  just  offset  the 
interest,  the  balance  of  accounts  is  precisely  as  it  should 
be.  It  is  a  model  mission  press  in  all  respects.  Mr. 
Holt,  its  general  manager,  deserves  the  gratitude  of  all 
christians,  not  only  for  turning  out  more  work  than 
any  other  mission  publishing  house  in  heathen  lands, 
but  also  for  showing  how  it  may  command  the  love  and 
support  of  all  around,  ever  on  strictly  business  prin- 
ciples indeed,  and  yet  so  as  to  make  every  missionary 
feel  that  it  is  for  him  a  helping  hand,  a  cordial  co- 
operating agency. 

The  American  Presbyterians  have  at  their  station 
upon  the  other  side  of  the  city  a  smaller  press,  with  a 
"Child's  Paper"  in  Chinese,  published  by  Mr.  Farn- 
ham,  with  a  monthly  issue  of  3,200  copies.  They 
have  eflScient  central  stations  at  Ningpo,  Hang-chow, 
Suchow,  Canton,  Nanking,  Tungchow-fu,  Chefoo,  Pe- 
king, and  Che-nan-fu.  Their  hospital  work  under 
Dr.  Kerr  of  Canton  is  specially  eflicient,  and  con- 
tributes largely  to  the  mission  cause  in  that  great 
centre  of  population.  The  women's  and  girls'  board- 
ing school  under  the  Misses  H.  and  M.  Noyes  pleased 
us  very  much  with  the  wisdom  of  its  management.    We 


PRESBYTERIAN    AND    BAPTIST.  211 

became  specially  acquainted  with  the  work  of  Rev.  J. 
Nevius,  D.D. ,  at  Chefoo  and  in  the  interior  of  Shan-tung. 
It  has  long  l)een  thorough,  and,  as  such  work  always  must 
be  eventually,  is  being  blessed  with  numerous  ingath- 
erings. His  wife  has  done  much  for  the  cause  among 
the  natives  through  the  service  of  song.  Mr.  Corbett 
does  much  useful  itinerating  through  this  same  great 
province.  Mr.  Mills  of  Tungchow-fu  preached  last 
year  at  six  hundred  villages.  This  city,  where  also 
our  friend  Mrs.  Capp  is  doing  such  faithful  work,  is 
about  the  most  lonesome  place  in  the  wide  world.  T 
Avish  nearly  all  other  missionaries  could  visit  that  place  ; 
it  would  cure  them  of  the  blues  for  the  rest  of  their 
lives.  The  only  difficulty  is,  the  good  missionaries  so 
appreciate  a  call  once  in  five  or  ten  years,  that  they 
hardly  give  the  visitor  opportunity  to  appreciate  the 
dreary  dismal  situation.  Still  I  believe  I  should  prefer 
to  be  stationed  at  Tungchow-fu,  for  I  should  have  the 
satisfaction  of  knowing  beyond  all  question  that,  if  I 
stayed,  it  was  God's  call. 

The  American  Baptist  Mission  (north)  at  Swatow, 
south-eastern  China,  deserves  special  mention  for  two 
reasons.  Dr.  Ashmore,  the  able  senior  missionary, 
has  given  special  study  to  the  place  for  mission  schools 
in  evangelization.  The  principle  which  he  has  adopted, 
allowing  for  exceptions,  is,  I  think,  substantially  cor- 
rect. It  is  that  schools  follow  in  the  track  of  the  preach- 
ing of  the  gospel.  First,  if  possible,  reach  adults  with 
the  message  of  salvation.  Qualify  such  converts  by 
Bible  instruction  as  soon  as  practical)le,  to  go  forth  and 
tell  "the  old.  old  story  of  Jesus  and  his  love"  to  other 
heathen.  Then  watch  for  the  inevitable  desires  for 
more  special  and  general  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the 
converts  for  themselves  and  their  kindred,  fostering 
those  desires  by  counsel  and  a  reasonable  measure  of 
personal  instruction  and  financial  aid.  We  have  met 
some  places  in  Japan,  and  we  shall  meet  others  in 
southern  and  western  Asia,  where  the  mission  school 
seems  required  to  lead  evangelization.  But  generally 
its  proper  position  is  a  following  one.     It  is  easier  to 


212  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

teach  children  than  to  meet  adult  heathen.  It  requires 
more  familiarity  with  the  language,  more  acquaintance 
with  the  social  and  literary  thought  of  the  people,  more 
intense  head  work  and  painful  heart  work,  and  I  believe 
that  in  a  great  many  mission  stations  the  temptation 
has  been  yielded  to,  of  substituting  the  less  toilful  and 
efficient  method,  where  greater  persistency  and  patience 
would  have  built  more  wisely,  and  with  larger  and 
better  results.  The  ambassador  of  the  cross  should  be 
very  slow  to  acknowledge  before  a  heathen  popula- 
tion —  "  We  can  do  nothing  with  you  adults,  but  must 
begin  with  your  children."  At  home  the  Sunday  school 
is  a  grand  enterprise,  but  it  must  not  be  allowed  to  be  a 
confession  of  the  weakness  of  the  pulpit  before  the  adult 
masses  of  the  unconverted.  This  I  fear  is  being  done 
at  many  points  of  the  mission-field.  The  school  is  em- 
phasized by  priority  in  time  and  expenditure  and  anxi- 
ety, and  that  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  which  is  more 
literally  in  accordance  with  the  great  commission,  and 
which  absorbed  the  larger  share  of  the  labors  of  the 
apostles  and  early  christians,  is  slighted ;  weakness 
ensues,  and  opposition  is  strengthened.  With  not  one 
ordained  missionary  yet  to  a  million  of  the  population 
of  China,  the  duty  should  be  most  thoroughly  consid- 
ered and  prayed  over,  before  consent  is  given  to  the 
apportioning  of  most  of  one's  time  to  the  school-room 
with  the  children  and  youth.  The  cause  needs  more 
leaning  the  other  way. 

The  other  feature  deserving  special  mention  at  Swa- 
tow  is  the  Bible  women's  work  under  the  superintend- 
ency  of  Miss  A.  Fielde.  Half  of  the  year,  accompanied 
by  a  native  woman,  she  itinerates  among  the  village 
homes  in  the  surrounding  country,  and  whenever  she 
finds  a  christian  woman  of  suitable  qualifications  and 
circumstances  that,  after  a  course  of  a  few  months'  in- 
struction, she  might  be  used  as  a  Bible  reader  and  ex- 
plainer, this  missionary  invites  her  to  the  Swatow  sta- 
tion the  coming  summer.  There  she  drills  her  class  of 
from  forty  to  sixty  simply  in  God's  Word,  and  then 
sends  forth  the  qualified,  two  by  two,  into  thousands  of 


SOUTHERN   BAPTIST.  513 

otherwise  inaccessible  homes,  with  the  open  Bible  to 
read  and  explain  to  the  women  and  children.  From  the 
mission  funds  the  amount  required  for  the  support  of 
these  women  is  only  two  dollars  each  per  month.  The 
same  denomination  supports  important  mission  work 
also  at  Ningpo  and  Zao-hying.  Dr.  Barchet  at  Ningpo 
is  being  specially  successful  in  the  treatment  of  opium 
cases.  At  the  other  city  the  question  has  assumed  prom- 
inence of  the  wisdom  of  the  use  of  the  Chinese  classics  in 
the  mission  schools.  The  excellent  missionary  brother 
protests  against  the  introduction  of  heathen  books,  teach- 
ing heathen  religion  and  morals.  But  the  majority  of  even 
the  native  christian  parents  demand  that  their  children 
have  like  others  a  classical  education.  In  these  same 
heathen  books  is  undoubtedly  to  be  found  the  best 
literary  style  of  the  Chinese  language.  A  young  man 
who  is  not  at  home  in  the  writings  of  Confucius  is 
marked  down  in  China  more  than  young  men  in  America 
and  Europe  who  have  been  to  college  and  yet  have  omit- 
ted Latin  and  Greek.  It  is  probably  wise  to  yield  to  this 
sentiment  in  a  measure.  It  is  not  necessarily  at  home 
demoralizing  and  heathenizing  for  our  boys  to  read  the 
Latin  and  Greek  classics.  These  and  the  Chinese  cor- 
responding ones  can  be  used  by  judicious  instructors 
for  the  strengthening  rather  of  the  scholar's  regard  for 
christian  doctrine  and  morals. 

The  Southern  American  Baptists  have  flourishing  mis- 
sion stations  at  Shanghai,  Canton  and  Tungchow-fu.  Dr. 
Yates'  translation  work  in  the  Shanghai  colloquial  is  of 
very  great  value.  Dr.  Graves  at  Canton  had  the  largest 
congregation  at  any  regular  church  service  which  I  at- 
tended in  China.  There  were  some  two  hundred  and 
^fty  present.  At  Tungchow-fu  I  was  most  pleasantly 
entertained  by  Dr.  Crawford  and  his  efficient  wife.  He 
had  just  returned  from  vacation  at  the  South,  and 
though  he  is  not  at  all  "reconstructed,"  and  predicts 
some  awful  retributions  yet  upon  the  North,  and  on  his 
walls  are  pictures  of  confederate  generals  and  statesmen, 
I  slept  well  under  his  hospitable  roof  and  had  no  fright- 
ful dreams. 


214  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

The  Methodist  mission  at  Fuchow,  in  the  province  of 
Fuh-Kien,  has  instructed  all  christian  missions  in  one 
important  lesson.  Some  fourteen  years  ago  the  mis- 
sionaries of  that  station  were  pursuing  the  almost 
universally  prevailing  policy  of  extreme  caution  in  the 
sending  forth  of  native  preachers  and  the  intrusting 
them  with  pastoral  responsibilities.  They  wanted  to  be 
perfectly  sure  that  their  young  men  converts  were 
truly  pious,  thoroughly  consecrated,  adequately  indoc- 
trinated, and  capable  of  bringing  honor  only  to  the 
cause  of  the  Divine  Master.  At  this  time,  that  one  of 
their  best  and  most  beloved  bishops  was  taking  a 
world  tour  of  Methodist  missions,  they  were  timidly 
withholding  nine  of  their  young  men-students  from  or- 
dination. These  had  lieen  several  years  under  instruc- 
tion, and  there  was  great  need  for  them  in  the  outl3dng 
stations.  But  all  the  missionary  brethren,  save  one, 
felt  as  if  there  was  still  too  much  risk.  They  could  not 
see  the  way  clear  before  them.  The  good  bishop  urged 
that  they  were  walking  too  much  by  sight,  and  needed 
to  walk  more  by  faith.  God's  Spirit  led  them  to  yield 
to  his  judgment,  and  the  nine  natives  were  ordained  and 
stationed  with  full  pastoral  responsibilities.  The  ensu- 
ing years  have  justified  that  decision.  Xone  of  these 
have  forfeited  the  trust  imposed.  All  but  one  at  the 
time  ot  my  visit  were  doing  efficient,  satisfactory  work 
as  settled  pastors,  and  that  one  was  only  tempornrily  off 
the  circuit  for  special  family  reasons.  Surely  this  is  in 
the  line  of  true  christian  policy.  It  will  not  do  here  to 
deny  our  heaven-born  principle,  and  insist  upon  walking 
by  sight  instead  of  by  faith.  We  may  not  preach  con- 
fidence in  God  in  ever}^  other  respect,  l)ut  reject  that  as 
a  rule  of  action  when  we  come  to  the  using  of  the  native 
converts  in  caring  for  the  native  churches  and  in  pro- 
claiming the  Gospel  throughout  the  regions  beyond. 
God  knows  full  well  what  material  his  Spirit  draws 
along  with  and  through  the  instrumentality  of  his  truth. 
After  we  have  done  our  best  with  that  material,  during 
a  reasonable  length  of  time  in  our  schools  for  native 
ministerial  preparation,  then  we  are  to  trust,  not  them, — 


METHODIST.  215 

oh,  no,  not  them,  —  but  Him,  who  has  called  them  and 
can  use  them.  "Because  the  foolishness  of  God  is  wiser 
than  men ;  and  the  weakness  of  God  is  stronger  than 
men."  It  is  well  to  establish  our  divinity  and  theo- 
logical schools  at  many  stations  throughout  the  heathen 
world.  It  is  wise  to*^furnish  them  the  best  instructors 
possible,  and  to  deal  in  the  matter  of  the  support  of  the 
students  so  liberally  that  they  may  remain  for  a  reason- 
able length  of  training.  But  still  the  great  missionary 
apostle's  words  are  not  to  be  forgotten :  "  God  hath 
chosen  the  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
wise ;  and  God  hath  chosen  the  weak  things  of  the 
world,  to  confound  the  things  which  are  mighty ;  and 
base  things  of  the  world,  and  things  which  are  despised, 
hath  God  chosen,  yea,  and  things  which  are  not,  to 
brinof  to  nauo:ht  thino^s  that  are ;  that  no  flesh  should 
glory  in  his  presence." 

The  above  incident  I  believe  to  be  the  secret  of  the 
much  greater  prosperity  of  the  Methodist  mission  at 
Fu-chow,  than  of  the  adjoining  mission  of  another 
society  and  denomination.  Both  were  located  at  this 
great  centre  of  population  at  about  the  same  time.  Both 
have  had  about  the  same  number  of  intelligent,  earnest 
laborers,  and  both  have  been  supported  with  generous 
contributions  from  home,  and  have  enjoyed  the  contin- 
ued assurance  of  the  sympathies  and  prayers  of  multi- 
tudes of  christians  in  the  American  churches.  Four- 
teen years  ago  they  stood  together,  their  successes  had 
been  about  equal.  But,  providentially,  the  Metho- 
dist mission  was  led  to  trust  God  more  in  the  use  of 
native  preachers  and  pastors.  The  missionaries  told  me 
they  felt  as  if  they  had  placed  the  interests  of  the  mis- 
sion in  great  jeopardy.  But  in  their  extremity  they  had 
recourse  to  earnest  special  prayer,  and  had  a  real  revival 
in  their  own  hearts.  To-day  they  have  nearly  three 
thousand  members  in  their  churches,  more  than  ten  times 
as  many  as  are  enrolled  by  the  other  very  estimable 
mission. 

The  American  Methodists  (north)  have  missions  also 
at  Peking ;   the  southern  Methodists  at  Shanghai  and 


216  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Su-chow  ;  and  English  Methodists  have  one  at  Ningpo, 
and  another  at  Tientsin. 

The  mission  of  the  English  Congregationalists  (Lon- 
don mission)  at  Hankow  is  very  prosperous.  It  has 
nearly  a  thousand  converts  in  communion.  The  senior 
missionaries,  John  and  Bryant,  are  preachers  of  great 
power  among  the  people.  When  I  have  seen  them  hold- 
ino*  larofe  conffreofations  with  their  strono^  los^ic  and  burn- 
ing  eloquence,  it  was  very  plain  that  marked  pulpit 
ability  is  a  desideratum  in  heathen  as  well  as  christian 
lands.  Many  missionaries,  who  are  good,  learned,  and 
faithful,  yet  are  very  limited  in  their  sphere  among 
foreign  idolatrous  populations,  for  the  very  same  reasons 
that  at  home  would  keep  them  in  the  pastorates  of  small 
retired  churches.  I  have  met  a  considerable  number, 
who,  having  been  located  in  the  foreign  field  immediate- 
ly after  graduation,  have  never  had  the  advantage  of 
the  grading-down  discipline,  and  they  suffer  much  from 
wonderment  that  some  other  missionaries  are  so  much 
more  successful.  Natural  gifts  tell  everywhere,  at  home 
and  abroad.  And  these  also  should  be  taken  into 
account  in  sending  preachers  of  the  Gospel  to  the  hea- 
then millions.  Mrs.  John  of  Hankow,  here  and  formerly 
at  Shanghai,  has  done  a  remarkable  work  for  English 
sailors.  Several  hundred  of  them  have  been  brought 
to  Christ  through  her  personal  ministrations.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  privilege  of  addressing  a  large  com- 
pany of  English  tars  in  her  parlors,  way  up  there  upon 
the  Yangtse-kiang,  six  hundred  miles  into  the  interior. 

The  London  Society  has  missions  also  at  Peking,  Tien- 
tsin, Shanghai,  Amoy,  Canton,  and  Hong-Kong.  It 
sent  the  first  missionary  to  China,  Rev.  Robert  Mor- 
rison, who  landed  in  Canton  in  1807. 

American  Cono^reocationalists  withdrew  their  missions 
over  twenty  years  ago  from  Canton,  Amoy  and  Shang- 
hai, resigning  the  responsibilities  to  other  hands,  and 
have  their  missionaries  stationed  now  at  Tientsin,  Pe- 
king, Kalgan,  Tung-chow,  Pao-ting-fu,  and  at  the  new 
Shangtung  mission.  Dr.  Blodget  of  Peking,  the  oldest 
missionary  of  their  Board,  is  engaged  upon  a  history  of 


CONGREGATIONAL.  217 

the  first  half  century  of  christian  work  in  China.  It 
will  be  a  valuable  contribution,  but  we  hope  he  will  not 
recommend  his  example  to  other  missionaries  in  one  re- 
spect :  that  is  in  spending  only  eleven  months  in  his 
home  land  out  of  twenty-seven  years  of  missionary 
service.  It  is  all  very  heroic  and  faithful  to  the  work  in 
China ;  but,  to  say  nothing  of  the  strain  on  his  health, 
which,  alas,  is  breaking,  this  course  is  a  robbery  of  the 
home  churches,  and  a  great  one  we  know  too  from  the 
blessed  and  profitable  intercourse  we  had  with  him  at 
the  Chinese  capital.  At  Tung-chow  the  constant  ava- 
lanche of  calls  upon  Mrs.  Chapin  for  medical  prescriptions 
illustrated  the  desirableness  of  missionaries  generally, 
like  herself,  becoming  somewhat  acquainted  with  the 
scientific  treatment  of  the  more  common  diseases.  It 
greatly  enlarges  the  range  of  the  missionary's  opportuni- 
ties for  evangelization.  The  best  plan  altogether  is  to 
support  a  thoroughly  educated  male  or  female  physician 
at  every  central  station.  But  the  next  best  idea  is  gen- 
eral familiarity  on  the  part  of  all  the  missionaries  Avith 
the  rudiments  of  medical  practice.  Indeed,  anyway, 
this  would  serve  them  all  well  in  their  itinerating  among 
the  far-away  villages  and  cities. 

The  English  Wesleyans  have  a  very  successful  mission 
at  Han-kow  ;  another  at  Canton.  The  Church  Mission- 
ary Society  of  England  is  doing  valuable  and  prospered 
work,  particularly  in  the  Che-kiang  province,  with  head- 
quarters at  Ningpo.  At  this  place  it  was  a  benediction  to 
meet  the  late  Bishop  Eussell.  Its  labors  in  the  Fuh-Kien 
province  are  quite  complicated.  To  the  building  diffi- 
culty with  the  Chinese  we  have  already  referred.  The 
English  diplomatic  court  has  not  sustained  their  appeal. 
The  sore  trial  must  be  borne.  It  may  be  a  providential 
reproof  for  encouragement  given  to  a  large  number  of 
converts  under  Methodist  discipline.  Such  action  is  in 
well-known  contrast  with  the  prevailing  spirit  and  meth- 
ods of  the  Church  Missionary  Society.  Too  great  care 
cannot  be  taken  in  regard  to  those  natives  who  have 
fallen  under  the  censure  of  the  missionaries  and  native 
churches  of  sister  societies.     It  is  conceivable  that  occa- 


218  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

sions  may  arise,  and  it  may  be  that  we  are  mistaken  in 
supposing  that  this  was  not  one  of  them,  when  hasty  and 
too  sweeping  acts  of  discipline  require  the  corrective 
measures  of  some  other  mission.  But  then  this  is  treat- 
ment warranted  only  in  extreme  cases,  and  it  would  l)e 
well  before  proceeding  to  action  to  call  together  a  gen- 
eral advisory  council  of  all  missionaries  of  the  different 
societies  from  the  accessible  stations.  The  council 
should  be  simply  advisory,  in  the  interest  of  a  united 
brotherly  feeling,  and  great  care  should  be  taken  not  to 
trench  upon  regularly  authorized  church  authority. 

American  Episcopalians  have  undertaken  a  very  im- 
portant missionary  college  work,  with  premises  located 
five  miles  out  from  the  Shanghai  bund,  and  under  the 
most  efficient  superintendency  of  Bishop  Schereschewsky . 
They  have  a  splendid  site  there  for  this  educational  insti- 
tution, and  though  two  and  a  half  miles  beyond  the 
foreign  concession,  it  is  almost  a  part  of  the  city,  being 
connected  with  the  magnificently  built-up  avenue  called 
the  Bubbling  Well  road.  The  Bishop's  })lan  for  the  col- 
lege is  not  simply  to  meet  present  demands,  but  to  lay 
deep  and  broad  the  foundations  for  reasonably  anticipated 
future  requirements.  Already  there  are  thirteen  stu- 
dents in  the  Theological  department,  and  nearly  fifty  in  the 
Collegf  classes  and  in  the  preparatory  Chinese  Classical 
Schoo'.  Rev.  Professors  Boone,  Yen,  and  Bates  teach  in 
the  c(  ilegiate  and  theological  departments,  and  in  addi- 
tion Rev.  Dr.  Nelson  and  Rev.  3Ir.  Thomson  in  the  theo- 
logical school.  With  nearly  all  of  them  we  became 
acquainted,  and  take  pleasure  in  testifying  to  their  em- 
inent qualifications  to  l)e  the  instructors  of  a  rising  na- 
tive ministry.  The  question  of  such  thorough  scientific 
training  as  is  here  proposed  we  shall  meet  and  consider 
farther  on.  This  American  Protestant  Episcopal  So- 
ciety has  also  an  encouraging  mission  at  Wu-chang, 
opposite  Han-kow.  Its  Bishop  Schereschewsky,  in  con- 
nection with  Bishop  Burdon,  whose  pleasing  acquaint- 
ance I  formed  at  Hong-Kong,  have  done  in  years  past  im- 
portant trdiisicUion  work  at  Peking  into  the  largely  used 
Mandarin  dialect.     They  have  lately  been  preparing  the 


EPISCOPALIAN.  219 

Prayer  Book,  which  is  probably  to  be  a  union  one,  con- 
taininof  all  that  is  in  both  the  Eno^lish  and  American 
Prayer  Books,  with  optional  use  of  the  differing  parts, 
and  in  the  easy  Wen-li,  or  later  than  the  antique  classic 
style  of  the  Chinese  book  language.  It  is  interesting 
to  note  their  decision  to  use  the  term  Tien-Chu  for  God, 
and  Sheng  Ling  for  the  Holy  Spirit. 

It  was  our  privilege  in  Chefoo  to  meet  frequently 
the  new  Bishop  Scott  of  the  provinces  of  Shantung  and 
Peh-che-li.  An  anonymous  friend  of  missions  of  the 
English  Church  has  lately  entrusted  to  the  Propagation 
Society  nearly  fifty  thousand  dollars  for  the  endowment 
of  this  see.  Despite  this  missionary's  youth  and  ex- 
treme High  Church  views,  the  honor  is  worthily  be- 
stowed. His  services  during  the  late  famine,  his  self- 
sacrifices  in  behalf  of  missionaries  of  other  societies, 
and  his  scholarly  attainments  make  him  deserving  of  this 
distinguished  appointment.  Here  also  is  the  flourishing 
Scotch  mission  station  in  charge  of  Rev.  Dr.  William- 
son. Its  chapel,  dispensary  and  other  buildings,  present 
an  attractive  appearance.  The  German  Basel  Society 
has  four  principal  stations,  and  the  German  Barmen 
five  in  the  Kwang-tung  province.  Both  are  meeting 
with  very  encouraging  progress  among  the  Hakkas. 
The  Berlin  Ladies'  Society  has  a  foundling  hospital,  called 
Bethesda,  at  Hong-Kong.  It  was  delightful  to  hear 
daily  in  the  next  building  to  the  one  in  which  we  lived 
in  Canton  the  singing  in  the  German  school.  American 
devotional  singing,  both  for  its  home  churches  and  its 
foreign  mission  stations,  needs  to  unlearn  some  things  and 
to  relearn  others  from  the  English  and  German  services 
of  song,  though  this  ought  not  to  be  overdone  in  the 
interest  of  what  is,  should  be,  and  must  be,. distinctively 
American.  The  (Dutch)  Reformed  Mission  at  Amoy 
with  the  little  steamboat  of  which  it  is  part  owner 
pleased  us  very  much  —  often  good  boats  are  the  most 
valuable  investments  of  mission  funds ;  so  also  was  I 
delighted  with  the  independent  work  at  Ching-Kiang, 
and  the  English  Presbyterians  at  Swatow.  The  latter 
society  has   flourishing  missions   in  Formosa.      They 


220  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

have  lately  become  associated  with  missionaries  from 
the  Canadian  Presbyterian.  The  Irish  Presbyterians 
and  English  Baptists  are  also  represented  in  China.  At 
Shing-King,  in  the  territorial  province  of  Manchuria, 
northeast  of  Peking,  we  find  them,  as  also  missionaries 
of  the  United  Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland.  There 
is  also  a  Rhenish  missionary,  engaged,  hy  request  of  the 
General  Missionary  Conference  of  China,  in  preparing 
an  edition  of  Chinese  classics  in,  as  we  are  told,  "a 
christian  apologetic  spirit."  Of  the  China  Inland  Mission, 
with  its  fifty-six  male  missionaries  and  twenty-three  un- 
married female  assistants ;  of  their  principles  and 
methods,  and  of  the  influences  of  their  movement  at 
home  and  abroad,  we  shall  find  it  necessary  to  write 
somewhat  at  length  in  our  succeeding  chapter. 


THE   ROVING   IRREGULARS.  221 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

MISSIONARY  OUTLOOK  IN  CHINA. 

HE  "China  Inland  Mission,"  with  its 
seventy-nine  missionaries,  or  one  hundred 
and  five  including  wives,  has  the  largest 
numerical  force  of  any  society  in  the 
country.  These  fifty-six  brethren  and 
twenty-three  unmarried  sisters,  together 
with  twenty-six  wives,  are  chiefly  from 
Great  Britain,  though  Switzerland,  Germany  and  other 
countries  are  represented.  We  have  become  acquainted 
with  many  of  them ;  have  seen  them  in  their  homes, 
chapels,  schools,  and  in  their  itinerating  work ;  have 
often  enjoyed  with  them  social  prayer  and  Bible  read- 
ino-;  and  know  them  to  be  as  pious,  consecrated  and 
hard-working  missionaries  as  are  to  be  found  in  any 
country.  Their  average  of  natural  intellectual  power 
and  of  culture  is  not  up  to  the  standard  of  the  leading 
British  and  American  mission  societies.  It  is  question- 
able whether  over  half  of  them  could  have  met  the  re- 
quirements of  the  committees  on  qualification  for 
foreign  missionaries  of  any  of  the  more  prominent 
branches  of  the  Christian  Church.  Their  familiarity 
with  God's  Word  is  very  noticeable,  yet  the  satisfaction 
this  would  otherwise  give  to  the  christian  observer  is 
constantly  marred  by  their  lack  of  familiarity  with  the 
principles  of  true  Scripture  exegesis,  and  their  eff'ort  to 
give  what  to  ordinary  christian  intelligence  is  a  peculiar 
sense  to  almost  every  portion  of  the  Sacred  Volume. 
They  have  had  certain  experiences,  certain  special  in- 
struction from  God's  Spirit  regarding  faith  and  sanctifi- 
cation,  and  their  study  of  the  Bible  seems  to  have  been 


222  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

chiefly  to  see  how  God  has  ilkistrated  upon  every  page 
what  already  they  are  confident  he  has  previously 
taught  them  in  their  own  precious  experiences..  Indeed, 
they  are  not  alone  in  this  false  method  of  exegesis.  It 
is  the  tendency  to  be  guarded  against  in  much  of  the 
Sunday-school  and  revival-meeting  instruction  of  our 
day.  The  Bible  itself  is  God's  oracle  of  truth.  It  is 
not  a  piece  of  melted  wax  to  receive  any  impression 
that  may  be  made  upon  it.  Language,  especially  the 
original  Greek  of  the  New  Testament,  has  its  own  mean- 
ing, its  own  fulness,  and  its  own  limitations.  And  we 
know  of  no  class  of  excellent  christian  people,  who  are 
farther  astray  in  this  regard  than  the  members  of  the 
China  Inland  (and  Livingstone  Inland  or  East  London  In- 
stitute) missions  and  their  consituency  in  the  home  lands 
of  Plymouth  Brethren  and  "  Higher  Life  "  christians. 

These  missionaries  feel  that  they  have  been  peculiarly 
favored  in  their  call  to  the  foreign  work.  The  call  has 
been  direct,  and  not  so  much  through  human  agencies  as 
with  other  missionaries.  They  claim  to  be  supported 
upon  the  faith-principle.  They  do  not  ask  any  human 
being  for  any  money  ;  they  only  ask  God,  and  he  supplies 
all  their  necessities.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  so  much  con- 
sequence to  them  to  have  educated  physicians,  for  they 
have  the  faith-cure  always  on  hand.  They  do  not  need 
such  extensive  li])raries  as  other  missionaries,  so  many 
commentaries  and  dictionaries  and  grammars,  for  they 
know  what  is  in  God's  word  by  a  kind  of  intuition.  As 
far  as  is  possible  in  connection  with  the  commanding 
spirit  of  their  senior  missionary,  J.  H.  Taylor,  they  re- 
tain perfect  liberty  to  roam  over  the  country  at  pleasure, 
or  rather  it  is  claimed,  as  they  may  feel  led  from  day  to 
day  ]>y  Providence.  Their  dress  and  style  of  living  is  con- 
formed to  that  of  the  natives.  The  men  even  wear  the 
long  cue,  shaving  their  heads  except  upon  the  cro\\Ti,  and 
make  a  quite  ludicrous  appearance.  The}^  are  very  much 
mistaken  in  supposing  that  they  pass  as  natives.  Their 
efforts  at  concealment  make  them  even  more  conspicu- 
ous. The  native  dress  is  very  becoming  to  the  women ; 
and  in  the  eyes  of  the  Chinese  at  least,  more  modest 


SOME    DISAPPOINTING    RESULTS.  223 

than  the  styles  of  christian  lands.  The  population  are 
not  pleased  to  see  the  foreigners  adopting  their  habits 
and  customs.  To  their  mind  there  is  deception  about 
it.  And  it  is  the  general  impression  that  these  mission- 
aries have  been  banished  from  their  own  countries,  and 
therefore  from  compulsion  or  resentment  change  their 
apparel  and  methods  of  life. 

The  spiritual  results  of  this  mission  are  in  large  meas- 
ure disappointing.  Now  for  so  many  years  there  have 
been  so  many  of  them  at  work,  that  we  have  a  right  to 
expect  a  corresponding  fruitage.  Especially  if  their 
principles  of  support  and  direction  and  evangelization 
be  more  pleasing  to  God  than  those  controlling  the 
movements  of  all  other  societies  and  their  missionaries, 
we  are  justified  in  looking  for  some  signal  tokens  of  the 
divine  favor  upon  their  efforts  to  win  the  heathen  to 
Christ,  to  build  up  the  Church  in  that  land,  and  to  pre- 
pare a  native  ministry  for  the  gigantic  work  of  the  fu- 
ture. But  in  all  our  travels  throughout  China  we  failed 
to  discover  those  signal  tokens,  or  in  the  light  of  the 
labors  and  successes  of  other  missions  to  find  that 
fruitage.  They  have  helped  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
geography  of  the  country ;  they  have  proved  that  the 
new  treaty  obligations  are  recognized  all  over  the 
country,  and  that  travel  everywhere  is  safe ;  they 
have  distributed  many  tracts  and  preached  the  gos- 
pel many  times,  but  the  evidences  of  marked  success 
do  not  appear  in  large  and  permanent  ingatherings  of 
converts  and  in  flourishing  schools.  They  have  indeed 
the  promise  that  God's  Word  shall  not  return  void.  It 
is  safe  indeed  to  scatter  the  seed  broadcast  in  Christ's 
name,  but  our  Lord  never  meant  such  promises  to  en- 
courage the  disregard  of  experience,  the  adoption  of  any 
hap-hazard  superficial  method  of  christian  service,  and 
the  censure  of  those  husbandmen  who  are  accustomed  to 
prepare  the  ground,  to  cover  up  the  seed,  and  to  watch 
and  guard  their  fields  from  birds  and  thieves  till  harvest 
time. 

Many  of  these  missionaries  do  not  believe  in  church 
organizations.    These  they  consider  have  been  the  great 


224  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

foe  to  the  cause  of  Christ.  Therefore  on  the  one  hand 
their  neglect  to  house  their  sheep  from  the  fatal  influ- 
ences of  the  world,  and  on  the  other  hand  their  antag- 
onism, more  or  less  conscious,  to  the  efforts  of  all  other 
missionaries  to  thoroughly  indoctrinate  their  converts 
and  to  form  them  into  ecclesiastical  centres  of  perma- 
nent power.  They  represent  in  their  views  of  the 
ordinances  and  services  different  denominations,  and 
their  bond  of  union  is  to  hold  all  these  opinions  very 
loosely.  Much  of  their  use  of  the  language  is  unsatis- 
factory. They  are  told  by  their  leader,  upon  coming 
out,  that  they  can  acquire  a  working  knowledge  of  it 
in  from  three  to  six  months.  It  is  a  great  mistake.  A 
working  knowledge  could  be  secured  in  this  time  for 
shopping  or  ordinary  social  conversation ;  but  not  for 
explaining  the  doctrines  of  a  new  religion,  nor  for  con- 
futing the  errors  of  old  established  systems  of  super- 
stition and  bigotry.  It  is  easy  to  advise  the  avoidance 
of  such  polemic  discussions  ;  but  the  advice  is  not  prac- 
ticable. The  Chinese  will  not  consent  to  a  simple  child's 
story  of  Jesus  Christ.  "  Telling  the  old,  old  story," 
in  a  language  of  which  only  a  smattering  is  known,  may 
be  beautiful  and  enterprising  in  theory,  but  it  probably 
does  as  much  harm  as  good  under  the  ordinary  circum- 
stances upon  the  mission  field,  and  taking  a  broad  sur- 
vey of  cause  and  effect ;  and  the  ambitious  missionary 
had  better  confine  his  attention  to  getting  his  tools  into 
condition  for  efi'ective  work.  It  is  claimed  by  some 
that  practice  is  the  best  school.  But  one's  estimate  of 
the  responsibility  of  a  preacher  of  the  gospel  must  be 
imperfect,  before  he  can  consent  to  lower  the  pulpit  to  a 
practising  school-room  platform.  A  conscientious  able 
Congregationalist  missionary  at  Osaka,  Japan,  told  me 
he  refused  to  preach  until  he  had  studied  the  language 
six  years,  though  often  urged  to  the  contrary  by  brother 
missionaries  and  native  christians.  But  he  felt  he  could 
not  take  the  responsibility  of  souls  until  he  had  mas- 
tered the  instrumentnlity  of  communication.  Thus 
ever  keeping  his  standard  l^efore  him  and  beyond  him, 
he  is  to-day  the  most  fluent  Japanese  speaker  of  any  of 


MISTAKEN    VIEWS    OF   PROVIDENCE.  225 

the  missions.  The  people  understand  him  better.  He 
has  all  their  idioms  at  ready  command.  He  speaks  as  a 
native.  Yet  his  position  is  extreme.  Our  China  Inland 
Mission  brethren  occupy  the  other  extreme.  They  talk 
much  without  the  people  understanding  them.  And 
their  confusion  in  the  language  is  increased  by  their 
moving  around  so  much  among  the  different  dialects. 

Their  views  of  providential  leadership  are  a  fruitful 
source  of  weakness  in  their  own  work,  and  calculated 
to  embarrass  those  who  accept  their  instructions.  They 
have  felt  like  going  to  a  certain  place  to  preach ;  and 
now  they/ee?  like  going  to  some  other  place,  and  that 
settles  it.  The  feeling  is  God's  command.  Mission 
work  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  calm  judgment,  care- 
ful reasoning,  and  the  counsel  of  experience,  as  a  matter 
of  impulse.  They  insist  that  God  shall  make  them  feel 
like  doing  everything  they  do  in  his  service.  Much  of 
their  consequent  advice  to  converts  cannot  be  practi- 
cable. If  they  are  to  expect  inclination  in  the  presence 
of  every  duty,  many  of  their  christian  duties  will  re- 
main undischarged.  If  they  are  to  build  their  super- 
structure on  feeling  only,  it  will  prove  very  rickety. 
The  christian  exi)erience  of  the  natives  needs  in  addi- 
tion judgment,  reason,  experimental  wisdom,  and  the 
sense  of  duty,  which  the  teaching  and  example  of  these 
missionary  brethren  are  not  calculated  at  least  to  make 
prominent.  The  encouragement  to  converts  with  their 
minds  upon  the  ministry  is  to  give  no  consideration  to 
temporal  obstacles,  nor  indulge  in  special  anxieties 
about  their  message.  They  are  simply  to  go  ahead, 
irrespective  of  their  responsibilities  to  kindred,  uncon- 
cerned al)out  their  support  or  that  of  their  families, 
and  in  public  address  to  open  their  mouths  for  the  Lord 
to  fill. 

The  fact  is  that  their  faith -principle  of  support  is  not 
consistently  carried  out.  The  missionaries  do  expect 
regularl}'  certain  remittances  from  their  treasury,  a 
minimum  quite  as  reliable  and  well-understood  as  the 
salaries  of  other  missionaries.  Its  treasury  has  its 
soliciting   agencies,  which  are  not  an  experiment,  hav- 


226  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

ing  proved  so  wonderfully  successful  in  furnishing 
uiKler  God  the  large  sums  needed  for  the  support  of  the 
celebrated  Bristol  Orphanage  and  the  Consumptives' 
Home  of  Boston.  The  treasury  never  requests  any 
person  to  make  a  contribution, —  George  Muller  says  he 
never  did,  and  believes  it,  too, — but  the  press"  is  kept 
constantly  at  work  scattering  everywhere  information 
about  the  financial  needs.  I  ask  a  man  for  a  dollar  for 
a  starving  family; — I  solicit.  But  I  take  that  man  to 
the  door  of  the  hovel,  and  simply  point  out  to  him  the 
squalor  and  wretchedness  ;  —  that  is  not  solicitation  !  I 
shall  never  forget  the  holy  horror  manifested  upon  the 
countenances  of  a  group  of  eight  ''  China  Inland  Mis- 
sionaries "  at  Wu-chang,  six  hundred  miles  into  the  in- 
terior, when,  desiring  to  compliment  their  mission's 
beautiful,  enterprising,  and  largely-circulated  paper, 
"China's  ^Millions,"  I  remarked,  that,  beyond  all  ques- 
tion, it  was  the  most  admirably  adapted  of  all  the 
publications  of  all  the  societies  as  "«  soliciting  agency.'' 
Nevertheless,  that  is  just  what  it  is — a  soliciting  agency. 
Information  full  and  accurate  ;  eloquent  description  of 
imperatively  pressing  Avants ;  cries  coming  up  from 
Carey's  missionary  mine  of  heathenism,  so  pitiful,  so 
calculated  to  move  the  deepest  sympathies  of  the  chris- 
tian's heart — to  say  that  all  this  is  not  solicitation  is 
absurd.  To  use  this  method  for  raising  missionary 
funds,  and  pray  for  God's  blessing  upon  it,  may  be  a 
wiser  plan  than  the  various  agencies,  with  which  all  the 
other  societies  of  the  Church  are  familiar ;  but  there  is 
no  more  prayer,  no  more  piety  in  it.  There  is  no  more 
trust  in  God  necessarily  associated  with  circulating 
"  China's  Millions "  missionary  literature,  or  Muller 
Orphanage  or  Cullis  Consumptive  Home  literatures, 
than  in  requesting  rectors  and  pastors  to  explain  the 
missionary  wants  to  their  peoples,  and  ask  for  generous 
contributions  or  subscriptions. 

But  their  faith-principle,  even  if  it  were  carried  out 
consistently,  would  be  a  travesty  upon  true  godly 
faith.  Faith  in  God  means  confidence  in  his  instrumen- 
talities also.     If  we  believe  in  the  Head  over  all  things 


TRUE    FAITH   MISREPRESENTED.  227 

to  the  Church,  we  believe  also  in  his  use  of  his  hands 
and  his  feet,  yea,  of  every  member  of  the  whole  body, 
however  insignificant  or  despised.  Paul's  life  of  faith 
in  God  prompted  his  interest  in  God's  poor  at  Jerusa- 
lem, but  it  also  led  him  to  make  definite  arrangements 
for  contributions  among  some  of  the  churches  toward 
their  assistance.  AYhen  this  great  apostle  exhorted  the 
Corinthians  to  liberality,  reminding  them  that  Christ, 
though  he  Avas  rich,  yet  for  their  sakes  had  become 
poor,  it  did  not  appear  that  he  considered  solicitation  of 
money,  otherwise  than  at  the  mercy-seat,  inconsistent 
with  a  life  of  trust  in  God.  True  faith  does  not  limit 
God.  It  does  not  say,  as  one  missionary  brother  of 
w^hom  I  know  in  India,  "  I  will  use  for  the  support  of  my 
family  and  self  only  what  God  gives  me  upon  my  field 
of  labor."  Bishop  Harris,  of  the  Methodist  Church, 
told  me  he  had  personally  pressed  upon  him  missionary 
treasury-checks  for  salary  arrears.  But  he  would  not 
take  them,  though  his  family  was  suffering  for  what  thus 
was  his  due,  and  what  God  had  thus  provided.  Nor 
will  true  faith  say,  I  will  accept  from  God  only  what  he 
sends  unexpectedly  to  me,  or  what  nobody  asks  any- 
body for  in  my  behalf.  Much  less  will  true  faith  adopt 
some  special  method  of  soliciting  missionary  or  philan- 
thropic funds,  and  go  to  boasting  over  others  whose 
methods  are  not  exclusively  their  own.  None  will  deny 
to  the  Muller  and  Taylor  movements  genuine  faith  in 
God,  but  we  do  deny  their  constantly  implied  monop- 
oly, and  Ave  do  deny  that  their  illustration  of  faith  is 
that  Avhich  received  the  sanction  of  Christ  and  the 
apostles,  or  is  that  which  to-day  is  calculated  to  in- 
spire the  most  health  and  effectiveness  in  the  Christian 
Church. 

The  so-called  "  Higher  Life  "  seems  to  be  peculiarly 
censorious.  I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  it  in  different 
parts  of  the  world,  and  whether  in  home  lands  or  on 
mission-fields  ;  whether  in  England,  Germany,  America, 
Japan,  China,  Singapore,  Burmah,  or  elsewhere,  it  has 
appeared  to  me  the  most  given  to  censuring  other 
christians  of  any  other  portion  of  the  Church.     They 


228  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

only  understand  the  deep  meaning  of  God's  Word. 
They  only  are  led  directly  and  intimately  by  His  Spirit. 
Their  sanctification  only  is  genuine.  There  are  many 
bright  examples  of  christian  life  among  them.  Their 
piety,  moulded  generally  by  peculiar  constitutional  tem- 
perament, is  of  that  kind  which  often  draws  the  nearest 
to  the  heart.  Their  experiences  frequently  are  blessed 
in  testimony  to  others.  They  have  a  few  —  a  very  few 
— really  able  men  and  w^omen  among  them.  But  its 
prevailing  spirit  toward  others  is  not  calculated  to  gain 
general  confidence  in  the  Christian  Church.  Its  meth- 
ods of  evangelization  are  impracticable,  and  sure  to  in- 
troduce discord  and  confusion.  The  providential  pur- 
pose of  the  movement  is  probably  to  call  attention  to 
neglected  privileges  in  the  Gospel.  The  history  of  the 
Church  has  shown  that  extreme  movements  are  needed 
from  time  to  time  to  arrest  attention  and  to  lead  to  con- 
sideration. Thus  God  is  blessing  the  Muller  and  the 
Taylor  mission  at  home  and  abroad.  If  they  are  not 
exactly  right,  yet  we  all  need  to  be  more  right.  Faith 
in  God  should  be  more  the  guiding  principle  of  our 
lives.  In  our  heart-experiences  and  in  our  service  for 
the  Master,  whether  in  christian  or  in  heathen  lands,  we 
ought  to  live  ever  nearer  to  our  Lord,  daily  a  higher 
and  yet  higher  christian  life.  Meanwhile,  much  wisdom 
is  needed  from  above,  both  in  the  mission  stations  and 
in  the  home  churches,  to  deal  with  the  passing  phe- 
nomenon. With  the  deaths  of  Muller  and  Taylor  the 
movement  will  have  proba1)ly  accomplished  its  specially 
providential  purpose,  and  their  work  will  move  forward 
in  the  ordinary  consecrated  channels,  established  by  the 
early  Church  and  hallowed  by  the  centuries. 

The  employment  of  missionary  physicians,  both  male 
and  female,  is  already  a  prominent  feature  of  the  work 
in  China,  and  promises  to  have  a  large  share  in  the 
evangelization  of  this  populous  land.  Their  usefulness 
is  manifold.  They  make  the  conditions  of  health  and 
long  life  in  the  country  a  special  study,  and  are  qualified 
not  only  to  attend  upon  the  other  missionaries  in  sick- 
ness,   but  to  watch  over  their  valuable  lives,   giving 


MISSIONARY   PHYSICIANS.  22d 

timely  warning  of  danger,  and  often  saving  them  from 
completely  breaking  down.  Their  almost  entirely 
gratuitous  work  among  the  native  populations  is  an 
illustration  of  christian  philanthropy,  which  tells  mightily 
for  the  cause  not  only  upon  those  directly  who  receive 
the  assistance,  but  also  upon  the  much  larger  number  of 
their  friends  and  neighbors,  and  upon  the  public  gen- 
erally which  is  specially  susceptible  to  such  humane 
influences.  How  much  like  the  Master  it  is,  this  going 
about  of  the  missionary  physicians  "healing  the  sick, 
and  curing  all  manner  of  diseases."  Some  missionaries, 
of  most  excellent  judgment  generally,  regard  this 
gratuitous  service  among  the  heathen  as  umvise.  They 
say  it  encourages  wrong  motives,  covers  up  with  the 
feeling  of  gratitude  the  opposition  of  the  natural  heart 
to  Christianity,  and  diverts  thoughts  from  the  cure  of 
the  soul  to  the  cure  of  the  perishable  body.  But  this 
evidently  was  not  the  opinion  of  Christ  and  of  his 
apostles.  Where  are  the  wrong  motives  encouraged,  it 
is  difficult  to  see,  if  in  the  missionary  physician's  prac- 
tice there  is  no  discrimination  exercised  in  favor  of  the 
converts.  But  this  certainly  would  be  the  embarrass- 
ment, if  the  only  way  for  the  heathen  to  secure  the 
benefit  of  the  foreign  medical  skill  was  to  profess 
Christianity.  Moreover,  gratitude  is  rather  a  light  to  help 
to  discover  the  natural  state  of  the  heart  than  a  darkness 
to  obscure  it.  And  besides,  no  subject  is  more  likely  to 
be  suggested  by  bodily  sickness  and  cure  than  the  dis- 
ease and  remedy  of  the  soul.     * 

Consecrated  medical  and  surgical  skill  upon  the  mis- 
sionary altar  of  China  is  beginning  to  prove  a  very 
powerful  agency  in  unsettling  the  superstitious  beliefs 
of  the  people.  We  have  seen  that  a  most  remarkable 
superstition  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  their  religious 
systems.  Whatever  can  strike  effectively  at  that  is 
of  incalculable  benefit  to  evangelization.  The  Fung- 
shway  doctors  have  had  almost  the  monopoly  of  the  heal- 
ing art,  and  their  practice  has  been  mere  jugglery, 
sorcery  and  childish  nonsense.  Their  quackery  is 
worse  even  than  in  Turkey,  of  which  the  following  is 


230  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

related  as  an  instance.  A  Turkish  physician  had  a 
case  of  typhus  fever,  and  considered  it  hopeless.  But 
the  patient  recovered,  drinking  meanwhile  a  pailful 
of  pickled  cabbage-juice.  The  doctor  noted  the  impor- 
tant discovery  at  once  on  his  book  —  "  Cured  of  typhus 
fever,  Mahommed  Agha,  an  upholsterer,  by  drinking  a 
pailful  of  pickled  cabbage-juice,"  On  his  next  patient 
the  doctor  attempted  the  same  marvellous  cure,  but  un- 
succesfully.  The  dose  was  as  fatal  as  a  bullet.  Where- 
upon the  scientific  physician  at  once  made  the  following 
memorandum  :  —  "  Although  in  cases  of  typhus  fever 
pickled  cabbage-juice  is  an  efficient  remedy,  it  is  not 
however  to  be  used  unless  the  patient  be  by  profession  an 
upholsterer."  The  Chinese  are  even  more  foolish  in  their 
use  of  medicines  prepared  from  dried  snakes,  lizards, 
toads,  bats,  and  other  creatures.  It  is  said  that  some 
'of  their  herbs  and  roots  are  used  with  skill  and  success, 
but  the  grand  principle  is  the  doing  of  something  sup- 
posed to  favoral)!}'  affect  the  invisil)le  fung-shway  influ- 
ences moving  about  in  the  air.  In  these  north  and 
south  currents  are  the  secrets  of  all  the  ills  to  which 
flesh  is  heir.  In  one  case  the  forefoot  of  a  lizard  will 
ward  oflf  bad  influences.  In  another  case  the  hind  leg 
of  a  toad  will  encourao^e  o^ood  influences.  The  true 
medical  and  surgical  sciences  go  far  toward  dispelling 
such  illusions.  ^lany  times  I  have  watched  groups  of 
Chinamen  around  the  prescri])ing  physician  or  the 
operating  surgeon  ;  and,  as  the  evident  cause  of  the 
disease  was  pointed  ^ut  and  intelligently  treated,  or  as 
the  difficult  operation  with  the  knife  drew  to  a  success- 
ful conclusion,  it  was  plain  that  their  old  conceited 
superstitions  were  fast  going,  and  that  the  way  w^as  pre- 
paring for  the  full  acceptance  of  christian  truth. 

Another  important  service  of  the  missionary  physician 
is  to  hold  laro^e  numbers  in  waitino',  while  native  chris- 
tian  teachers  and  Bible  women  improve  their  opportunity 
lo  tell  the  Gospel  message,  and  to  urge  the  application 
i)f  Christ's  salvation  to  their  diseased  immortal  spirits. 
Of  course  the  physician  is  not  to  drag  his  work  for  this 
purpose.     That  would  be  ciiiel.      But  there  is  no  need 


HOSPITAL   OPPORTUNITIES.  231 

for  such  management,  when,  as  ahnost  uniformly,  scores, 
and  sometimes  even  hundreds,  are  waiting  for  hours 
their  turn  in  the  consulting-room.  I  have  seen  over 
two  hundred  in  one  day  during  office-hours  flocking  to 
the  Baptist  hospital  under  Dr.  Barchet  at  Ningpo.  I 
counted  the  same  number  twice  in  waiting  at  the  Eng- 
lish Congregationalist  hospital  at  Hankow  under  Dr. 
Mawbey.  Necessarily  several  hours  must  be  required 
for  the  physician  to  give  personal  examination  to  all 
these  cases.  Consequently  there  is  excellent  oppor- 
tunity for  evangelistic  labor  in  the  waiting-rooms.  Dr. 
Post,  in  the  Kaisers werth  Beirut  hospital,  considers  this 
kind  of  religious  enterprise  unwise.  He  Avould  dispense 
his  services  freely,  without  asking  the  Syrian  natives  to 
run  the  gauntlet  of  christian  exhortation  and  Bible-read- 
ing. I  think,  however,  this  is  being  unduly  cautious, 
and  that,  if  not  at  Beirut,  at  least  generally,  the  oppor- 
tunity is  too  important  to  be  neglected. 

Medical  science,  particularly  through  missionary  wom- 
en physicians,  is  beginning  to  effect  great  intellectual 
and  social  revolutions  in  China.  The  superstitions  of 
the  people  reach  the  height  of  their  absurdities  when 
they  concern  the  women  and  children  of  the  families. 
But  among  the  better  classes  the  women  are  inaccessible 
to  foreign  male  physicians.  The  husband  would  rather 
have  his  wife  die  than  see  the  face  of  the  man-doctor  in 
her  sick-room.  But  this  national  prejudice  is  avoided 
by  women  physicians.  They  are  finding  their  hands 
full  wherever  located.  A  great  impetus  to  this  move- 
ment throughout  the  land  was  given  lately  by  the  inci- 
dent at  Tientsin,  of  the  cure  of  Lady  Li,  to  which  we 
have  already  alluded.  The  American  female  doctor 
from  Peking  proved  the  key  to  the  situation  not  only 
in  the  Viceroy's  palace,  but  also  in  the  embar- 
rassed treaty  negotiations  of  the  American  and  Chinese 
plenipotentiaries.  It  is  not  a  new  thing  in  European 
politics  for  women  to  change  the  course  of  events, 
and  it  seems  the  time  has  come  for  Americans  to  begin 
to  take  lessons.  But,  more  especially,  this  event,  in 
the  libertv  it  has  allowed  to  foreio-n  medical  skill,  is 


232  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

spreading  like  a  conflagration  throughout  the  empire, 
destroying  immense  accumulations  of  superstition  and 
ignorance,  and  preparing  the  way  for  the  principles  of 
Christian  civilization. 

China  is  far  yet  from  being  occupied  as  a  mission-field. 
A  large  number  of  good  strategic  points  have  been 
manned,  but  there  are  many  others  which  remain  to  be 
taken  and  fortified.  The  next  station  which  one  or  two 
of  the  mission  societies  should  establish  is  at  Chung- 
king, the  great  commercial  city  of  the  enormously  rich 
province  of  Szchuen,  twelve  hundred  miles  into  the  in- 
terior. Some  representatives  of  the  National  Bible 
Society  of  Scotland  are  there,  and  it  is  being  "visited" 
by  the  China  Inland  Mission.  I-chang,  in  the  province  of 
Hu-peh,  three  hundred  and  fifty  miles  east,  is  the  nearest 
treaty  port  and  mission  station.  This  Szchuen  province 
borders  on  Tibet,  and  Avill  proliably  give  to  christian 
effort  its  most  accessil)le  opportunity  among  that  great 
densely  l)igoted  Buddhistic  population.  In  the  prov- 
inces of  Shansi  and  Shensi,  lately  stripped  of  almost 
half  their  population  by  the  famine,  much  more  mission- 
ary la1)or  should  be  provided  to  follow  up  the  phil- 
anthropic impressions  made  by  the  distribution  of  chris- 
tian charities.  Nan-kino^  and  Yano^-chow  need  to  be 
more  strongly  occupied.  There  are  no  missionaries  at  all 
in  the  provinces  of  Honan,  Kansu,  Hunan,  Kw^ei-chau, 
Kwang-si  and  Yun-nan.  Kiang-si  has  only  a  station  at 
its  extreme  north  —  Kiu-kianof,  and  Xofan-hwei  at  its 
extreme  south — Ngan-king.  And  w^ho  will  occupy 
Corea  when  its  doors  fly  open,  as  they  will  within  the 
next  five  years  ?  When  it  is  remembered  that  each  of 
these  provinces  represents  a  great  populous  nation,  it 
will  be  seen  that  all  the  missionary  societies  will  have 
their  hands  more  than  full  for  years  to  come  in  simply 
occupying  the  necessar}^  central  stations  for  the  prepa- 
ration of  native  agencies  throughout  this  vast  population. 
As  yet  the  Christian  Church  has  but  one  foreign  or- 
dained missionary  in  China  to  each  one  million  six 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants. 

The    Sunday   (luestion   presents  great   diflSculties   in 


OBSERVANCE    OF    LORD's    DAY.  23.3 

heathen  lands,  particularly  among  such  an  industrious 
population  as  China,  where  all  seem  constitutionally 
inclined  to  work  through  all  the  wakino:  hours.  We 
have  already  seen  that,  with  the  laboring  classes,  the 
Roman  Catholic  missionaries  allow  Sunday  work  after 
attendance  at  early  morning  service.  The  English 
Church  Missionary  Society  at  Ningpo  is  not  inclined  to 
make  Sabbath-breaking  a  matter  of  discipline,  nor  of 
disqualification  for  baptism  and  confirmation.  Almost 
universally,  however,  it  is  considered  wise  by  the  mis- 
sionaries to  insist  upon  the  converts  giving  up  their 
secular  pursuits  for  one  seventh  of  the  time.  It  is  one 
of  the  best  badges  of  discipleship.  It  furnishes  the  time 
needed,  not  only  for  the  public  services,  but  for  Bible 
study,  religious  reflection,  and  evangelizing  labor 
among  their  fellow-countrymen.  It  is  a  discipline  in 
self-sacrifice  that  is  needed ;  and,  notwithstanding  the 
peculiar  difficulty  of  merely  supporting  life  among  such 
a  dense  population,  in  some  way  or  other  the  Lord  does 
provide  for  all  His  Sal^bath-keeping  Chinese  children. 
It  is  to  be  devoutly  hoped  that  the  American,  and  not 
the  European,  idea  of  the  proper  observance  of  the 
Lord's  Day  is  to  be  impressed  upon  the  rising  Christian 
Church  of  China. 

There  is  a  phenomenon  worth  consideration  at  the 
Presbyterian  mission  station,  under  Rev.  Mr.  Farnham, 
just  outside  the  south  gate  of  the  native  city  of  Shang- 
hai. Here  every  Lord's  day  will  be  found  the  largest 
Sunday  school  assembled  in  China,  nearly  three  hun- 
dred Chinese  children.  It  is  a  glorious  sight,  but  — 
but  —  they  are  hired  to  come.  The  cost  in  the  aggre- 
gate annually  is  not  very  large.  A  few  cash  each  per 
Sunday  —  ten  cash  equalling  one  cent  —  and  for  one 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  year  this  large  regular  attend- 
ance is  secured.  The  children  are  all  from  the  most 
common  working-classes.  Their  parents  work  them 
every  day  nearly  all  the  time  at  something,  even  the 
smallest  dots.  The  simple  habits  of  the  people  supply 
much  that  even  the  little  children  can  do  toward  the 
support  of  the  family.     When  these  parents  are  solic- 


234  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ited  by  the  missionaries  to  send  their  children  to  the 
Sunday  school,  they  usually  reply,  "  We  cannot  afford  to 
lose  their  hire."  ''  How  much  can  they  earn  for  you  dur- 
ing the  hour  we  want  to  instruct  them  at  the  chapel  ?  "  is 
the  response  of  this  mission.  The  average  estimate  is 
struck,  and  the  funds  are  drawn  from  the  treasury  to 
buy  off  the  time  of  these  hundreds  of  children.  At  first 
the  few  cash  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  each  scholar 
upon  retiring  every  Sunday.  But  latterly  tickets  are 
issued  and  redeemed  once  a  month.  Well ;  is  it  best? 
There  will  be  difference  of  opinion.  I  do  not  like  the 
the  principle,  but  I  did  like  the  school.  It  is  claimed 
that  it  is  the  principle  of  home  Sunday-school  tokens, 
and  Christmas  presents,  applied  to  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances of  humble  Chinese  life  ;  and  that  the  various  gifts 
to  any  home  school  of  three  hundred  members, — picnics, 
excursions,  Christmas-trees,  books,  cards,  clothes,  — all 
would  amount  to  over  an  average  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  dohars.  But,  still,  that  paying  money  right  out :  it 
is  very  difficult  to  endorse  it.  Besides,  I  could  not  find 
that  the  spiritual  results  of  that  school  are  commensurate 
with  its  large  attendance,  its  efficient  teachers,  and  the 
years  during  which  the  experiment  has  been  tried.  1 
think  the  principle  is  defective,  and  its  counterpart  in 
home  churches  as  well.  Still  I  would  not  enjoy  being 
the  one  to  withhold  that  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars, 
and  hope  this  experiment  will  go  on,  until  its  lessons  are 
plain  l)eyond  all  controversy. 

There  is  quite  a  variety  of  judgment  and  practice 
among  the  missionaries  in  China  as  regards  the  kind  of 
printed  character  in  Avhich  the  Scriptures  and  christian 
literature  should  be  prepared.  It  may  be  well  to 
explain  this,  as  helping  to  an  appreciation  of  missionary 
responsibilities  and  perplexities,  and  also  for  the  purpose 
of  clearing  up  the  confusion  of  many,  who  read  such  ap- 
parently contradictory  reports  regarding  translations 
and  other  literary  work  in  China.  There  are  two  forms 
of  the  one  written  language  of  China  ;  the  one  is  the  old 
classical  style,  intelligi]:>le  to  but  a  comparatively  few, 
the   really  thorough  Chinese    scholars;    and  the  other 


LANGUAGE    PERPLEXITIES.  235 

form  of  the  Wen-li,  as  it  is  called,  is  the  simple,  easy- 
literary  style,  in  common  use  among  merchants  and 
officials,  and  generally  understood  by  all  who  know  how 
to  read  at  all.  But  the  difficulty  is,  all  do  not  know 
how  to  read  in  China,  very  far  from  it.  It  is  wonder- 
ful that  so  many  do,  yet  the  masses  are  unable  to  give 
the  meaning  to  more  than  a  few  of  the  many  thousand 
hieroglyphics  of  even  the  simplified  Wen-li.  Particu- 
larly among  the  women  the  written  language  is  almost  a 
blank.  The  Bible  and  some  christian  literature  has  been 
translated  and  written  in  the  common  literary  style. 
But  still  two-thirds  of  the  people  cannot  read  it.  Two 
methods  are  being  adopted,  either  one  of  which,  how- 
ever, falls  under  the  most  severe  ridicule  of  all  the  edu- 
cated classes  of  China.  And  that  ridicule  is  quite  an 
element  to  be  taken  into  account,  not  only  as  regards 
themselves,  but  in  its  influence  upon  the  illiterate  classes. 
In  Japan  we  have  seen  that  this  sentiment  of  literary 
conceit  appears  to  be  carrying  the  day,  and  compelling 
the  form  of  Bible  translation  and  christian  literature 
against  a  proba1)ly  better  judgment.  Some  of  the  mis- 
sionaries make  use  of  the  characters  of  the  written  lan- 
guage to  represent  the  colloquial  dialects,  using  the  char- 
acters for  their  sounds,  as  the  character  which  means 
"  eight "  would  be  used  in  the  Fu-chow  colloquial  for  the 
verb  "  to  know,"  because  its  sound  is  the  same. 

Others  prefer  to  use  the  Romanized  letters.  The 
simplicity  and  facility  is  believed  to  counterbalance  the 
more  familiar  appearance  of  pages  printed  with  Chinese 
characters.  It  has  seemed  to  me  the  native  symbols 
used  phonetically  is  the  wiser  method  ;  that  it  is  safer  to 
defer  to  Chinese  prejudices,  wherever  no  real  principle  is 
at  stake  ;  and  that  the  courteous  efibrt  to  supplement  with 
colloquial  characters  the  cumbrous  hieroglyphic  system 
will  ultimately  secure  the  approbation  of  the  literary 
classes. 

It  is  evident  that  the  natives  are  beginning  to  distin- 
guish between  christian  and  unchristian  foreigners.  This 
is  hopeful,  for  duiing  the  first  few  years  we  were  all  con- 
founded ;  and  the  dishonesties  of  foreign  commerce,  the 


236  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

odious  principles  of  the  opium  trade,  the  outrageous 
immoralities  of  the  majority  of  the  foreigners  with  whom 
the  Chinese  came  in  contact,  and  the  overreachings  and 
imperiousness  of  European  diplomacy,  they  considered 
to  be  the  practical  fruitage  of  the  missionaries'  Christian 
religion.  But  now  the  people  are  evidently  learning 
better.  The  long  self-sacrificing  labors  of  many  mis- 
sionaries have  begun  to  open  their  eyes  to  make  distinc- 
tions. Particularly  have  the  philanthropic  labors  of 
christians  during  the  late  famine  been  blessed  to  the  let- 
ting in  of  a  flood  of  light  into  superstition  and  prejudice 
darkened  China.  They  have  seen,  as  we  have  before 
mentioned,  five  missionaries  lay  down  their  lives  for  the 
sake  of  the  poor  starving  wretches,  for  whom  their  own 
selfishness  could  prompt  little,  if  any,  charity.  Let  me 
give  a  specimen  of  the  spirit  and  conduct  of  the  well-to- 
do  natives  themselves  right  in  the  midst  of  this  awful 
scourge,  which  had  swept  away  from  one-half  to  two- 
thirds  of  their  neighbors.  Dr.  Nevius,  of  the  Presby- 
terian Che-foo  mission,  had  been  distributino-  in  a  laro^e 
circuit  of  villages  for  several  months  up  to  the  first 
gathering  of  the  new  crops.  The  $30,000  relief  fund 
with  which  he  had  been  entrusted  would  be  used  up  to 
the  last  cash  on  the  following  week.  The  well-to-do 
Chinese  people  who  had  witnessed  all  the  christian  phil- 
anthro})ic  efforts  through  him,  without,  however,  giving 
any  assistance,  now  roused  themselves  upon  his  depart- 
ure to  a  special  demonstration  of  appreciation  and  grati- 
tude. They  arranged  with  the  missionary  a  day  and  hour 
when  they  would  give  him  a  musical  entertainment,  and 
accompany  it  with  an  elal)orately  inscribed  series  of  res- 
olutions. It  all  passed  oflT  grandly,  but  Avhat  was  the 
missionary's  surprise  and  mortification,  to  find  that  the 
expense  of  the  two  bands  and  of  the  richly  ornamented 
document  had  been  forced  by  these  same  well-to-do  and 
powerful  neighbors  out  of  the  very  starving  people  he 
had  been  assisting,  and  so  that  every  cent  of  the  cost 
had  come  from  his  relief  fund.  Such  conduct  is  not 
exceptional.  It  is  quite  characteristic  of  the  Chinese  ; 
the  legitimate  fruit  of  Buddhism  grafted  into  their  pecul- 


TEMPTATIONS    OF   THE    LABORERS.  237 

iar  nature.  But  over  against  such  selfishness  stands 
in  such  glaring  contrast  the  deliberate  sacrifice  of  five 
foreign  lives,  and  the  giving  away  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars,  that  the}'  are  saying  —  ''  There  is  a  dif- 
ference. This  Christian  religion  has  principles  of  power 
of  w^hich  w^e  know  nothing.  It  makes  difierent  people 
of  foreigners ;  it  may  make  difierent  and  better  people 
of  us." 

We  noted  wdth  deep  regret  the  adoption  among  a 
number  of  Chinese  missionaries  of  such  view^s  of  restor- 
ationism  as  have  lately  been  advocated  by  Canon  Farrar. 
The  effect  must  be  to  appreciably  dampen  the  ardor  of 
their  evangelizing  labors.  And  let  me  take  this  occasion 
to  remark  that  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  there 
is  little  or  no  need  to  pray  in  the  home  lands  that  for- 
eign missionaries  be  kept  from  error  of  doctrine  and  in- 
consistency of  life.  Though  called  to  the  highest  and 
holiest  work  on  earth,  they  are  still  human,  and  are  lia- 
ble to  human  temptations,  which,  especially  in  heathen 
lands,  cluster  thickly  and  powerfully.  An  old  school- 
mate, one  of  the  ablest  men  of  our  class  in  the  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  once  a  missionary  in  Ningpo,  and 
later  in  Hang-chow,  is  now  a  sceptic,  a  bitter  opponent 
of  Christianity,  high  in  the  service  of  the  Chinese  gov- 
ernment. Another  missionar}'  of  another  society  in  the 
north  of  China  was  tempted  to  adopt  "  Higher  Life " 
views,  became  insane  in  consequence,  and  the  cause  lost 
a  most  valuable  helper. 

In  central  Japan  another  efficient  missionary  of  still 
another  society  was  tempted  by  the  same  extreme 
views,  coupled  with  the  most  impatient  doctrines  of 
second  adventism,  and  the  result  was  another  wTeck  of 
mind  and  infiuence.  And  I  could  mention  three  others 
lately  in  China,  tempted  in  their  physical  w^eakness  and 
lonely  surroundings  aw^ay  from  healthy,  scriptural  views 
of  life  and  service,  and  consequently  ruined.  I  have 
heard  of  but  one  missionary  yielding  to  immorality ;  of 
but  tw^o  guilty  of  social  indiscretions  ;  and  of  but  one, 
and  he  not  under  regular  appointment,  ever  using  a 
profane  word.     The  consistency,  both  in  doctrine  and 


238  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

life,  of  the  great  body  of  foreign  missionaries,  who 
have  numbered  in  the  last  generation  at  least  over  five 
thousand,  is  remarkable,  and  a  cause  for  profound  grat- 
itude to  God.  Yet  the  exceptions  illustrate  the  dangers, 
and  call  for  constant  prayers  on  the  part  of  the  home 
constituencies,  that  large  measures  of  keeping  grace  be 
o^ranted  unto  all  who  labor  for  us  in  the  Lord  in 
heathen  lands. 

In  one  part  of  the  China  field  I  found  that  a  mission- 
ary had  just  left.  He  had  not  commended  himself  or 
his  work  at  all  in  that  locality.  It  had  proved  impos- 
sible to  toil  along  together  with  him,  and  the  home 
Board  was  unanimously  requested  to  remove  him  and 
his  wife  from  that  station.  There  was  nothing  criminal, 
only  incompatibility.  Those  remaining  expressed  sur- 
prise that  the  mission  authorities  had  considered  it  worth 
while  to  try  them  at  another  station.  But  it  proved 
that  those  authorities  were  wise.  More  than  a  thousand 
miles  distant  I  subsequently  visited  that  other  inflicted 
station,  and  I  found  all  the  missionaries  in  love  with 
these  new-comers,  and  agreeing  that  their  labors  were 
most  efficient  and  of  far-reaching  utility.  It  is  plain,  that 
missionaries,  as  well  as  other  christian  laborers,  have  their 
natural  aptitudes,  their  companionship  tastes,  and  their 
right  to  fair  trials  under  other  circumstances  before 
judgment.  Often  missionaries  have  no  idea  themselves 
what  they  can  do  till  shifted  to  some  other  scene  of 
labor.  Some  of  the  societies,  I  beg  leave  to  suggest, 
need  to  study  into  the  principles  of  this  method  of  cure. 

It  appears  wise  to  cluster  the  missionary  families 
together,  not  too  many  of  them  as  in  a  few  of  the  China 
stations,  but  we  may  say  after  the  evident  plan  of  the 
American  Board  in  the  North,  of  two  families  with  two 
single  women,  and  one  physician.  If  a  male  physi- 
cian, he  should  of  course  be  married,  and  there  will 
be  a  third  family  in  the  little  christian  community  in  the 
midst  of  a  vast  heathen  social  darkness.  This  arrange- 
ment is  best  for  the  religious  health  and  effectiveness  of 
service  of  each  member  of  the  missionary  station. 
They  will  do  more  together  than  if  separated  into  two 


CHINESE   rOOT-BINDIN(5.  239 

or  three  different  stations.  Besides  from  the  social  life 
of  several  christian  families  there  radiate  special  influ- 
ences for  good  that  cannot  proceed  from  isolated  fam- 
ilies. 

It  is  quite  a  difficult  question,  what  position  should 
be  taken  by  the  missions  regarding  the  cruel  prevail- 
ing custom  of  female  feet-binding.  Particularly,  what 
stand  shall  be  decided  upon  with  respect  to  the  binding 
of  the  feet  in  mission  schools  and  in  the  families  of 
members  of  christian  churches  ?  It  is  not  simply  the 
matter  of  abandoning  a  cruel  custom.  It  is  also  the 
consideration  of  placing  all  the  girls  in  our  native  chris- 
tian families  and  mission  schools  in  the  ranks  of  prosti- 
tutes, according  to  the  prevailing  judgment  and  social 
laws  throughout  China.  When  this  ancient  custom 
arose  it  is  uncertain.  It  is  purely  Chinese,  the  domi- 
nant Manchu  Tartars  not  binding  the  feet  of  their 
women,  although  they  do  marry,  generally,  however, 
for  only  secondary  wives,  the  crippled  Chinese  Avomen. 
Only  three  classes  preserve  the  natural  feet ;  the  com- 
mon field  and  boat  women,  secondary  wives  or  concu- 
bines, and  prostitutes.  All  females  in  China,  who  are 
not  designed  for  virtual  slavery  on  the  one  hand,  or  for 
lives  of  shame  on  the  other,  are  compelled  between  the 
ages  of  six  and  fourteen  to  go  through  a  painful  pro- 
cess of  daily  binding,  which  reduces  the  natural  foot  to 
between  two  and  a  half  to  four  inches  in  len2:th.  This 
for  nearly  two  hundred  millions  of  females  is  the  social 
badge  of  respectability.  Xo  one  can  aspire  to  be  a 
true  lady  without  this  qualification.  They  cannot  wear 
the  long  garments,  or  the  bright  colors,  or  the  orna- 
ments, even  if  they  are  members  of  the  same  family. 
By  natural  feet  the  Chinese  know  the  demi-monde^  as 
we  know  them  in  Christian  lands  hy  their  flashy  style 
of  dress.  Many  women,  desiring  to  appear  respectable, 
or  to  reform  their  lives,  after  it  has  become  too  late  to 
compress  the  natural  feet,  adjust  imitation  ones  below, 
and  hide  their  own  with  the  usual  bandages  and  gayly 
ornamented  pantalets.  The  binding  process  is  very 
painful,  breaking  gradually  the  instep,  quite  deadening 


240  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

the  portions  of  the  limbs  below  the  knees,  and  leaving 
for  the  little  silk-embroidered  shoe  scarcely  more  than 
the  heel  and  big  toe.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  undo 
the  process,  after  it  has  been  once  completed.  Mothers 
insist  upon  it,  wherever  it  can  be  afforded ;  and  no 
Chinese  gentleman  will  marry  other  than  a  thus  de- 
formed-foote'd  woman.  The  prevailing  judgment  among 
the  missions  is  that  this  custom  must  not  be  tolerated 
regarding  the  girls  in  the  christian  families  and  mission 
schools.  Familiarity  with  the  missionary  ladies  helps 
to  break  the  prejudice  in  favor  of  the  custom  on  the 
part  of  the  parent  converts.  Indeed  some  of  them,  as 
at  Fuchow,  have  taken  very  decided  prohibitory  ground. 
The  Methodist  Mission  there  has  forbidden  it  altogether 
in  the  families  of  that  church.  To  avoid  some  of  the 
attendant  embarrassment,  a  peculiar  shoe,  something 
like  that  worn  by  the  Tartar  empress,  is  substituted.  It 
is  evident  that  the  heathen  population  there  is  showing 
an  unexpectedly  favorable  appreciation  of  the  situation. 
The  probability  is  that",  if,  with  decided  opposition  to 
the  cruel  -custom,  and  more  or  less  rigorous  rules  as 
occasion  may  require  in  the  churches  and  mission 
schools,  there  be  coupled  some  such  effort  as  that  of 
these  Fuchow  missionary  ladies  to  show  a  courteous 
deference  toward  the  national  prejudice,  the  end  will  be 
gained  without  seriously  imperilling  moral  character. 
It  will  practically  limit  the  chances  for  marriage  to  the 
young  men  educated  in  the  mission  schools.  But  that 
will  be  an  advantage.  Much  harm  ensues  in  mission 
fields,  as  well  as  in  the  home  lands,  from  pious  young 
women  forming  matrimonial  alliances  with  ungodly 
men.  Scarcely  ever  has  my  ministry  brought  me  to 
more  unwelcome  tasks  than  officiating  at  such  nuptials. 
One  of  the  mountain-like  difficulties  in  the  way  of  evan- 
gelization among  Chinese  women  is  the  fact,  that  prob- 
aljly  one  fourth  of  all  their  work  indoors  is  in  the  various 
preparations  of  paper  for  idolatrous  uses.  This  paper  is 
made  into  representations  of  money,  garments,  houses, 
horses,  servants,  carriages,  rugs,  bank-checks,  and 
everything  else  the  superstitious  native  fancy  can  pic- 


MAKING    SPIRIT-MONEY.  241 

ture  their  departed  friends  as  requiring  in  the  spirit 
world.  Then  this  is  burnt  at  the  funerals,  the  graves, 
and  at  stated  occasions  during  three  years  subsequent  to 
decease,  the  ]:>elief  being  that  thus  the  actual  articles  are 
placed  to  the  use  of  the  ascended  spirits.  Largely  the 
crippled  women  can  do  this  kind  of  work,  and  there  are 
millions  of  them,  such  as  widows,  wives  of  shiftless 
opium  slaves,  and  unmarried  girls,  who  have  this  as 
their  only  means  of  support.  As  such  superstition  in 
itself,  as  well  as  in  its  uniform  relation  to  idolatrous  ser- 
vice, is  entirely  opposed  to  the  truth  and  spirit  of 
Christianity,  the  occupation  ceases  upon  profession  of 
conversion.  But  then  what  are  these  poor  women  to  do 
for  a  living?  About  the  only  thing  to  which  they  can 
turn  their  hands,  on  account  of  their  crippled  condition, 
is  embroidery.  In  some  mission  schools  native  teachers 
are  employed  to  instruct  the  girls  who  may  have  to 
support  themselves,  and  the  unfortunate  poor  women,  in 
ornamental  needle-work,  for  which  they  have  natural 
aptitude.  But  the  market  is  generally  over-stocked, 
and  the  remuneration  very  small,  not  to  compare  with 
the  profit  of  the  idolatrous  paper  work.  These  women- 
converts  may  well  enlist  sympathy,  prayer  and  any 
possible  assistance.  Take  for  example  one  we  met  in 
Shanghai.  Her  heathen  paper  business  had  given  her  a 
good  living.  But  the  truth  and  spirit  of  Christ  had 
spoken  to  her  heart,  and  she  must  earn  her  support  in 
some  other  way.  The  missionaries  felt  she  must  decide 
and  take  the  step  from  principle,  and  so  without  any 
promise  of  assistance  from  them.  She  threw  herself  on 
the  Lord,  brought  forth  her  old  spinning-wheel,  and 
eked  out  the  barest  subsistence  for  a  month.  Then, 
having  sufficiently  tried  her  faith,  God  sent  her  means, 
which  placed  her  in  the  very  comfortable  circumstances 
in  which  we  found  her.  A  good  movement  is  on  foot 
in  New  York  city  to  create  in  American  society  a 
demand  for  just  this  embroidery  work  which  Chinese 
women  can  do.  We  wish  it  large  and  immediate 
success. 

Domestic    slavery    is    another    Chinese    institution, 


242  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

which  hinders  the  advance  of  Christian  Missions. 
Girls  in  .he  family,  and  wives,  until  at  least  they  have 
l)ecome  the  mother  of  a  son,  are  esteemed  a  species 
of  property,  to  be  pawned  or  sold  as  occasion  may 
require.  The  husband  and  father  has  the  power  of 
life  and  death  over  at  least  the  female  portions  of 
his  family.  He  may  kill  them,  and  Chinese  law  will 
not  punish  him.  Generally  the  household  servants 
are  slaves,  bought  in  the  female  child  market  which 
is  kept  well  supj^lied,  but  where  prol)ably  the  chief 
purchasers  are  those  whose  business  is  to  train  up 
for  houses  of  prostitution.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  see 
men  with  baskets,  on  the  ends  of  a  pole  over  their 
shoulders,  filled  with  baby  girls  for  sale  at  from  forty 
cents  upwards  apiece.  Boys  also  are  bought,  but  gen- 
erally for  adoption.  The  Chinese  justify  the  buying  of 
girls  for  service,  or  secondary  wives,  on  the  ground  that 
they  are  thus  saved  from  being  strangled,  or  drowned, 
or  from  lives  worse  than  death.  This  is  another  of 
the  evidences,  I  suppose,  that  Buddhism  is  ''the  light 
of  Asia."  We  are  told  that  its  influence  is  to  lift  up 
woman  from  her  heathen  degradation.  AVell,  it  has 
had  an  opportunity  for  eighteen  hundred  years  in  China, 
in  every  city,  village,  and  home  ;  and  to-day  the  only 
chance  for  two  hundred  millions  of  women  having  any 
show  of  an  independent  position  is  in  giving  birth  to  a 
son ;  all  the  others  are  doomed  to  domestic  slavery. 
They  are  bought  and  sold  daily  in  enormous  numbers  all 
over  the  land.  Half  the  baby  girls  of  China  could  be 
bought  to-morrow  for  a  few  dollars  at  the  most  apiece. 
Almost  all  sonless  mothers  are  in  dread  of  sale.  The  more 
thoroughly  the  situation  is  understood,  the  more  hor- 
rible it  appears.  It  is,  indeed,  high  time  that  some 
other  "  light  of  Asia  "  than  the  selfish  system  of  Buddha 
should  shine  into  the  darkness  of  this  state  of  social 
life.  Thank  God,  Christianity  is  sending  forth  its  ])right 
heavenly  rays  throughout  this  land.  It  teaches  that 
women,  even  baby  girls,  have  souls,  and  must  not  be 
considered  property,  much  less  mere  things,  either  to 
gratify  selfish  lust,  or  to  be  strangled  or  drowned  like 


CHARACTER  OF  CONVERTS.  243 

kittens.  Converts  are  taught  that  their  servants  are  to 
be  accounted  free,  their  wives  companions,  and  their 
daughters  to  be  reared  for  most  honorable  lives.  But 
in  this  direction  the  difficulties  are  enormous,  and  the 
missionary  load  correspondingly  increased. 

A  good  beginning  has  been  made  in  the  martyrology 
of  the  Chinese  Christian  Church.  Native  lives  have 
been  nobly  laid  upon  the  altar  of  the  faith.  The  blood 
of  the  martyrs  is  said  to  be  the  seed  of  the  Church. 
Pro!)ably  more  of  this  seed  will  be  needed  in  China. 
Some  of  the  christian  character  I  have  met  in  that  land, 
and  much  of  which  I  have  heard  from  eye-witnesses  has 
not  been  surpassed  in  the  history  of  evangelization. 
There  is  that  woman  at  Swatow,  maimed  for  life  because 
she  would  pray  to  Jesus.  There  is  that  Tartar  at  Canton, 
who  prefaced  my  remarks  through  the  interpreter  by 
leading  in  prayer  for  God's  blessing  upon  them,  and 
who  had  been  arrested  again  and  again,  but  always  took 
his  Bible  with  him  to  the  court  to  read  from  it  as  his 
defence.  There  are  those  six  Chinese  evangelists  from 
different  cities  and  villao'es  in  Eastern  Kwano-tuno^,  who 
interviewed  me  three  solid  hours  one  evening  upon  the 
question  of  Chinese  evangelization,  never  asking  a  ques- 
tion l)ut  ])ore  directly  upon  the  subject,  and  then  spent 
half  an  hour  m  prayer  at  the  close.  There  is  Chi-kee, 
one  of  their  own  number  gone  before,  who,  when  the 
axe  of  his  persecutor  was  held  over  his  head,  and  the 
threat  made,  "  Once  more  utter  the  name  of  Jesus  and  I 
w^ill  cut  you  down  ;  "  continued,  ''  Thus  often  it  was  with 
the  apostle  Paul,  who  feared  not  to  stand  in  the  presence 
of  death  because  of  his  love  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  him 
crucified."  There,  way  up  in  the  interior  in  a  village 
of  the  province  of  Hu-peh,  is  a  young  man  who  stepped 
in  between  the  pelting  mob  and  the  missionary,  exclaim- 
ing, ''You  may  kill  us,  but  you  can't  kill  the  Gospel ! " 
And  I  might  fill  many  pages  with  the  recital  of  evi- 
dence that  Christianity  is  winning  glorious  conquests  in 
China,  and  that  the  home  churches  may  rely  upon  the 
character  of  the  results  of  their  missions  amon^:  the 
strange  people  of  this  populous  land. 


244  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

The  fact  that  our  missionaries  and  their  work  are 
being  held  in  higher  esteem  throughout  the  empire  is  a 
source  of  great  encouragement.  So  also  is  the  contrast 
with  the  Roman  Catholics  which  is  being  drawn  by  the 
natives  largely  in  our  favor.  Our  schools  are  being  ap- 
preciated more  and  more  every  year.  Many  of  their 
graduates  are  showing  great  intellectual  power  and 
capacity  for  usefulness.  Here  and  there  one  quite 
ranks  with  our  most  able  missionaries.  Right  here  a 
mission  society  I  will  not  name  has  been  led  into  the 
mistaken  policy  of  therefore  giving  them  corresponding 
salaries.  This  is  unnecessary,  complicating  and  dan- 
gerous. The  most  prominent  of  these  natives  has  had 
the  good  sense  to  accept  only  half  of  his  salary.  And 
this  he  has  done,  for  the  sake  of  the  cause  and  his  breth- 
ren of  the  native  ministry,  for  several  successive  years. 
The  late  Shanghai  conference  of  all  the  missionaries  of 
the  different  societies  shows  the  prevailing  unity  of 
spirit  among  our  foreign  laborers  in  China.  Such 
gatherings  should  take  place,  if  not  triennially,  at  least 
once  every  five  years  ;  and,  as  it  costs  too  much  for  the 
great  majority  of  the  missionaries, —  so  vast  are  Chinese 
distances,  and  so  expensive  steam  travel,  averaging 
twenty-five  dollars  per  day,  — the  home  churches  should 
furnish  them  the  means.  The  work  in  China  is  begin- 
ning to  tell  abroad  through  emigration.  At  Singapore 
I  became  acquainted  with  a  convert  from  the  Fuh-kien 
province,  whose  labors  have  there  been  blessed  to  a 
goodly  number  of  conversions,  and  he  has  erected  a  very 
pleasant  chapel  and  adjoining  pastor's  residence.  I  in- 
cline to  think  that,  taking  all  things  into  account, 
the  Chinese  converts  are  in  advance  of  the  Japanese 
christians  in  the  matter  of  self-support.  Their  country- 
men are  better  financiers,  as  shown  in  their  already 
monopolizing  most  of  the  banking  business  in  Japan. 
Christian  character  in  China,  though  harder  to  realize, 
is  like  work  wrought  out  from  the  harder  rocks,  more 
reliable  than  in  teachable,  pliable,  imitative  Japan.  The 
Bible  is  arresting  attention.  I  showed  a  copy  of  Mat- 
thew's Gospel  to  a  high  mandarin,  asking  his  judgment 


PARALYSIS    OF   FAITH.  245 

of  its  literary  merits,  and  if  he  thought  the  language 
clearly  conveyed  the  sense  the  author  intended  ?  It  was 
the  only  way  to  get  him  to  read  it.  He  did  not  stop  till 
he  had  finished  the  book.  Returning  it  he  said,  "  We 
have  really  nothing  equal  to  it  in  our  classics.  We 
make  our  great  men  gods  after  they  have  written  our 
books.  Yours,  who  wrote  this  book,  must  have  been  a 
god  before."  Let  me  not,  however,  close  these  chapters 
on  China  with  too  orlowino^  words.  With  all  its  en- 
couragements,  the  field  is  awfully  hard.  Perhaps  the 
leading  missionary  in  native  gifts  and  culture,  — one  of 
whose  stalwart  piety  multitudes  have  no  question,  —  con- 
fessed to  me  of  often  suffering  amid  his  China  work  with 
the  paralysis  of  faith.  I  do  not  wonder.  God  help  the 
missionaries  to  the  "middle  kingdom,"  and  preseiwe 
them,  and  give  them  the  prayers  of  all  the  Church,  in 
their  heroic  assault  upon  the  "  Gibraltar  of  Heathenism  "  ! 


246  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

DUTCH  EAST  INDIES  AND  OTHER  ISLES. 

,0  the  southeast  of  the  world  of  Asia  is  an 
island  world.  Americans  generally  are  not 
as  well  acquainted  with  it  as  are  Europeans. 
Our  geographies  indeed  have  told  us  of 
Java  and  her  companions,  of  the  continen- 
tal Australia,  of  the  Philippines  and  New 
Zealand,  and  of  Polynesia,  Micronesia, 
Melanesia,  and  the  Moluccas,  liut  our  missionary  and 
commercial  relations  have  been  so  limited  with  those 
lands  and  peoples,  that  but  few  appreciate  the  vastness 
of  territory  and  population,  the  beauty,  grandeur,  and 
fertility  of  the  countries,  the  extent  and  success  of  hither- 
to evangelizing  efforts  made  by  other  christians,  and  the 
important  bearings  upon  the  future  of  the  human  race, 
all  included  under  those  geographical  expressions. 
Great  Britain's  possession  of  Australia  has  as  large  a 
territory  as  that  of  the  United  States  of  America.  But 
the  flag  of  Holland  floats  over  a  much  larger  population. 
Java,  which  is  about  the  size  and  shape  of  Cuba,  has 
upwards  of  fifteen  millions  of  people.  The  fact  that  the 
chief  of  the  East  Indies  has  eight  times  the  population 
of  the  chief  of  the  West  Indies,  and  that  its  Dutch  rule 
gives  so  much  more  tranquillity,  security,  and  prosperity 
than  the  Spanish  government  over  its  colony,  while  both 
alike  have  been  on  trial  for  nearly  three  centuries,  is 
suggestive  of  comparisons  favorable  to  Protestantism. 
Sumatra,  another  Dutch  possession,  is  a  thousand  miles 
long,  and  larger  than  all  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland 
together.  Borneo,  still  another  island  under  the  flag  of 
Holland,  has  more  square  miles  than    both   Java  and 


AUSTRALIA.  217 

Sumatra.  The  Celebes  extend  over  as  much  territory 
as  Italy.  And  New  Guinea,  being  larger  than  France, 
is  as  yet  amicably  divided  between  the  Dutch  and  the 
English.  In  all  the  immense  territory  of  this  out  of 
the  way  part  of  the  world,  there  are  at  least  twenty-five 
millions  of  people.  The  majority  of  them  are  Mahome- 
tans ;  a  third  probably  Pagans  ;  one  million  six  hundred 
thousand  Protestant  Christians  ;  and  a  half  million  Roman 
Catholics. 

The  eastern  half  and  the  northwest  and  southwest 
corners  of  Australia  have  been  brought  quite  generally 
under  christian  influences.  But  a  fcAv  years  ago  this 
Island  Continent  was  simply  a  penal  colony.  At  the 
time  of  our  "  Revolutionary  War  "  it  did  not  contain  one 
civilized  man  ;  nor  did  either  the  adjacent  islands  of  New 
Zealand  and  Tasmania.  But  now  the  population  in  the 
civilized  and  enlightened  portions  numbers  nearly  three 
millions.  The  Australian  churches  exhibit  an  intelligent 
and  earnest  missionary  spirit.  The  public  institutions 
of  Sydney,  Melbourne,  and  Adelaide  are  fully  equal  to 
those  of  cities  of  corresponding  size  in  England.  A 
Wesleyan  Society  publication  reports  :  ''  There  is  on  the 
whole  a  larger  proportion  of  well-informed  educated 
people  in  the  Australian  colonies  than  among  the  same 
number  of  people  at  home,  and  their  religious  feeling  is 
fully  equal."  A  dozen  British  mission  societies  in  co-ope- 
ration with  christian  colonists  have  accomplished  most 
gratifying  evangelistic  results.  There  are  reported  of 
nominal  Protestants  in  New  South  Wales^  137.000;  in 
Queensland  93,000  ;  in  Victoria  540,000  ;  in  South  Aus- 
tralia 150,000;  in  West  Australia  18,000;  and  in  Tas- 
mania 80,000.  There  are  church  accommodations  for 
nearly  300,000,  and  there  are  about  350,000  pupils  in  the 
day-schools.  Education  in  Victoria  is  at  government 
expense  entirely,  and  is  compulsory.  Quite  generally 
then  is  Australia  under  christian  influence.  So  also  New 
Zealand,  including  its  twin  island  to  the  south.  And 
the  same  may  be  said  of  almost  all  Polynesia.  The 
Philippine  islands  are  Buddhistic.  New  Caledonia  is 
chiefly  Roman  Catholic.    The  prevalent  Mahometanism 


248  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

is  of  a  very  bigoted  and  persistent  type.  In  practically 
conquering  the  Dutch  East  Indies  the  sword  of  the  false 
prophet  had  doubtless  more  to  encounter  than  the  simple 
paganism  of  the  aborigines.  The  r>uddhism,  which  still 
retains  hold  of  multitudes  in  Java  and  Sumatra,  was  once 
a  mighty  power,  swaying  influence  that  must  have  com- 
pared with  the  palmiest  days  of  the  worship  of  Ra  and 
Osiris  in  Egypt,  with  the  three  hundred  years'  sover- 
eignty of  the  priests  of  Apollo  at  Delphi,  with  the  rule 
of  Asur  over  the  Assyrians,  and  of  Maruduk  and 
Nabu  over  Babylon.  In  the  central  district  of  Java, 
this  story  is  told  in  stone  among  the  famous  ruins  of 
Borobodo.  Without  comparing  these  architectural  re- 
mains with  the  great  pyramid  of  Cheops  in  Egypt,  as 
has  lieen  done,  it  is  but  truth  to  affirm  that  they  rank 
hio^h  amonof  the  o^rande.st  ruins  of  relio-ious  structures  in 
the  world.  The  pile  of  masonry  is  a  pyramid  in  form, 
nearly  four  hundred  feet  square,  nine  stories  high,  and 
covered  with  figures  of  Buddha.  This  mountain  of  stone 
tells  of  a  past  civilization,  with  religious- enterprise  and 
power,  which  must  either  have  decayed  before  the  ad- 
vent of  Mahometanism,  or  more  likely  have  given  to  the 
mission  of  Islam  a  desperate  resistance. 

The  situation  of  these  countries,  particularly  of  the 
Dutch  possessions,  is  very  eligible.  They  lie  upon  the 
great  highway  between  Europe  and  India  on  the  one 
hand,  and  China,  Japan  and  Australia  on  the  other. 
They  are  in  the  best  situation  to  receive  the  vast  over- 
flow of  Asiatic  population.  In  some  respects  the  civil- 
ization of  Java  is  in  advance  of  that  of  British  India. 
The  Dutch  took  possession  here  in  1623,  and  have  held 
uninterrupted  control  except  during  five  years  between 
1811  and  1816,  when  Holland  was  swept  by  the  Napo- 
leonic wave  ;  then  the  English  took  immediate  possession, 
as  of  a  French  colony,  together  with  numerous  other 
islands  of  the  Orient,  restoring  to  the  Dutch  elava  and 
other  lands  at  the  close  of  the  war,  but  retaining  Ceylon, 
Malacca  and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Notwithstanding 
these  losses  Holland  retains  the  position  of  second  only 
to  England  as   a  colonial  power  in  the   world.     There 


JAVA.  249 

have  been  some  fiercely  waged  wars,  and  still  in  the 
north  of  Sumatra  the  sanguinary  conflict  with  the 
Acheen  Malays  continues.  The  expenses  of  this  war 
have  for  many  years  been  bonie  by  the  surplus  revenue 
of  Java.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  a  time  will  come  when  a 
change  of  policy  on  the  part  of  the  government,  and 
of  temper  on  the  part  of  the  brave  savages,  will  do  for 
them  what  America  is  now  doing  for  the  Indians,  and 
what  England  has  done  for  the  Sikhs  of  her  northwest 
Indian  empire. 

Java  is  well  supplied  with  roads,  In-idges,  comfortable 
villages,  and  with  cities  of  considerable  pretensions. 
The  metropolis  of  the  island,  Batavia,  founded  before 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  reached  Plymouth  Rock  from  the 
same  Holland,  looks  very  much  like  the  Hague,  and  its 
street  canals  with  their  numerous  boats  give  quite  the 
illusion  of  being  at  Amsterdam  or  Rotterdam.  Every- 
where the  houses  have  the  substantial  Dutch  appearance. 
They  are  not  built  very  high,  which  is  accounted  for 
both  b}'  the  frequent  earthquakes  of  the  country,  and 
by  the  characteristic  dislike  of  Hollanders  to  over- 
exercise  themselves,  as  with  supernumerary  staircases. 
In  Batavia  are  two  good-sized  and  attractive  public 
squares.  One  of  them,  called  Waterloo  Plain,  shows 
the  Dutch  are  not  willing  to  forget  the  part  they 
took  in  that  battle  of  such  tremendous  issues.  From 
this  city  there  is  a  railroad  to  Buitenzorg  in  the  interior, 
forty  miles  distant,  where  the  governor-general  resides. 
Here  we  are  on  the  hills  at  the  feet  of  Java's  great  central 
mountain  range.  The  scenery  has'^many  Alpine  features, 
only  the  snow-clad  peaks  are  wanting,  and  along  down 
the  sides  we  see  palms  and  bamboos  instead  of  pines. 
Dr.  H.  M.  Field  suggests  rather  a  parallel  with  the 
scenery  of  the  Ancles.  Here  at  Buitenzorg  is  the 
richest  botanical  garden  in  the  world  in  tropical  speci- 
mens. From  Samarang,  Java's  middle  port,  there  is  a 
railroad  into  the  interior  as  far  as  Jookja,  where  a 
native  is  permitted  to  play  sultan  under  the  guns  of  the 
Dutch  resident's  fort.  Also  at  Solo,  upon  this  route, 
a  make-l)elieA'e  emperor  is  allowed  under  similar  cir- 


250  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

cumstances.  There  is  another  railroad  in  central  Java, 
leading  from  Samarang  to  Ambarrawa,  which  is  the 
strongest  of  all  the  Dutch  fortresses  in  this  part  of  the 
Avorld.  Sourabaya  is  the  eastern  port  of  Java,  as 
Samarang  is  of  the  centre,  and  Batavia  of  the  western 
district. 

The  tropical  products  of  the  East  Indies  command  a 
market  in  every  land.  There  are  grown  all  kinds  of 
spices,  pepper,  nutmegs,  cloves,  cinnamon,  aloes  and 
other  varieties.  The  coffee  productions  of  Java  are 
known  everywhere.  The  sugar  plantations  are  very 
rich.  Dr.  Field  visited  a  manufactory,  which  was  told 
him  yielded  a  profit  of  $400,000  a  year.  Among  the 
palms  of  the  forests  are  the  cocoanut,  the  sugar  and  the 
sago.  There  also  will  be  found  the  bread-fruit  trees 
and  the  bananas.  The  South  American  imported 
cinchona  flourishes  here,  and  its  well-known  Peruvian 
bark  is  producing  the  best  quality  of  quinine.  In  the 
valleys  rice  is  raised  in  large  quantities,  and  its  gather- 
ing time  is  the  happiest  season  of  the  year  lor  th© 
natives.  They  say  it  is  largely  because  courtship  is 
then  in  order,  and  that  it  is  on  this  account  that  ail 
reaping  improvements  are  vigorously  resisted,  th* 
people  })referring  to  lengthen  the  halcyon  days  with 
their  rude  implements  and  simple  methods.  From  these 
islands  great  quantities  of  camphor  are  secured  from  th© 
clear  white  gum  of  certain  trees ;  also  tapioca  from  the 
pith  of  other  trees.  A  great  many  dye-woods  are 
found  here  for  the  most  beautiful  colors  ;  as  also  the  hard 
black  ebony,  capal)le  of  so  high  a  polish.  In  Sumatra 
the  forests  abound  with  tigers  and  wild  elephants,  and 
generally  throughout  these  islands  with  snakes,  which 
are  often  quite  domesticated.  To  the  south  of  Java 
are  found  the  edible  birds'-nests,  so  prized  in  China,  one 
hill's  yield  having  been,  it  is  said,  in  a  single  year  at  a 
profit  of  nearly  $20,000. 

All  the  land  in  Java  is  owned  by  the  government, 
and  is  rented  to  the  planters.  But  with  the  land  also 
goes  the  labor,  enough  to  work  it.  This  the  govern- 
ment guarantees,  as  well  as  the  possession  of  the  land. 


POLYNESIAN  LANGUAGE.  251 

The  planters  do  not  own  the  tillers  of  the  soil,  but  the 
plantations  do.  The  Dutch  authorities  will  not  allow 
any  strikes  at  harvest-time,  such  as  are  said  to  have 
ruined  Jamaica,  but  on  the  one  hand  require  the 
laborers  to  work,  and  on  the  other  hand  their  employ- 
ers to  pay  them.  This  qualification  of  personal  liberty 
has  its  advantages,  and  yet  it  is  a  species  of  serfdom 
somewhat  behind  the  spirit  of  the  age.  The  industry, 
after  all,  is  not  equal  to  that  of  China.  The  flora  and 
fauna  of  Borneo  and  of  the  islands  beyond  are  more 
like  those  of  Australia  than  of  Asia.  Generally  the  sea- 
sons are  but  two, — the  wet  and  the  dry,  — and  all  the 
while  vegetation  is  prodigal  and  luxuriant.  The  effect 
of  such  climate  upon  the  natives  is  to  cultivate  an  ardent, 
fiery  temperament,  and  upon  foreigners  to  make  them 
dull  and  languid.  Morals  are,  as  should  be  expected, 
in  a  wretched  state ;  the  native  religions  peculiarly 
superstitious  ;  and  the  christian  converts,  when  prop- 
erly guided  by  missionary  superintendency,  remarka- 
bly efficient  in  evangelizing  labors.  We  need  not  farther 
dwell  upon  the  characteristics  of  soil,  population  and 
government  throughout  this  vast  island  world,  in  order 
to  sufficiently  introduce  it  to  the  missionary  interest  of 
the  reader.  The  well-informed  will  recall  the  gold  and 
agricultural  resources  of  Australia,  the  immense  Euro- 
pean population  of  New  Zealand,  the  flocking  every- 
where of  Chinese  colonists,  the  world's  exhibitions  in 
the  large  and  beautiful  cities  of  Sydney  and  Melbourne, 
the  various  lines  of  steamship  communication  with  all 
parts  of  the  globe  multiplying  every  year,  the  ocean 
cables  laid  and  to  be  laid  to  many  islands  and  cities, 
and  other  points  of  magnifying  consequence  upon  which 
we  cannot  linger. 

There  is  one  feature,  however,  in  the  situation  of 
these  vast  and  widely  separated  South  Pacific  popula- 
tions, which  commands  a  passing  notice.  I  refer  to  the 
marvellously  extended  diffusion  of  the  Polynesian  lan- 
guage. Missions  find  here  one  of  the  greatest  possible 
advantages  in  the  propagation  of  Christianity.  The 
Polynesian  race,   called  the  Malayan  by  ethnologists. 


252  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

is  scattered  over  the  globe  from  Formosa  to  New  Zea- 
land, and  from  the  Sandwich  Islands  to  Madagascar. 
It  is  prol)able  they  have  some  affinity  with  the  North 
American  Indians.  They  have  a  light  olive-colored 
skin,  straight  black  hair,  well-developed  bodies,  and 
good  faces,  though  the  nose  is  more  flattened  and  the 
cheek-bones  more  prominent  than  with  Caucasians.  It 
is  probable  they  are  of  Semitic  origin.  Though  in 
social  life  and  religion  they  are  inferior  to  the  Mela- 
nesians,  they  are  better  developed  in  mind  and  the  arts 
of  civilization  than  this  other  race,  which  spreads  be- 
tween New  Caledonia  and  the  Moluccas,  and  which  prob- 
ably is  of  Hamitic  descent.  This  Melanesian  race, 
called  sometimes  the  Negril,  or  Negrillo,  from  African 
resemblances,  has  a  dark  copper-colored  skin,  crisp 
curly  hair,  small  but  robust  l^oclies ;  and  speaks  a  per- 
fect Babel  of  languages.  Indeed,  on  account  of  the 
mutual  unintellis^ibilitv  of  the  ^Melanesian  Iano^uao:es, 
that  portion  of  the  vast  South  Pacific  Archipelago  has 
been  named  "Babel  Polynesia."  There  is  as  much 
difference  between  the  Aneityumese  and  Iparese,  as 
between  English  and  French  ;  and  even  more  with  the 
Eromangau.  But  Providence  has  seemed  to  largely 
preserve  the  integrity  of  the  Polynesian  language  for 
the  use  of  modern  Christian  Missions.  When  a  Sand- 
wich Island  missionary  lands  in  New  Zealand  he  is  able 
to  be  immediately  understood  by  the  natives.  Dr. 
Ellis,  who  labored  both  in  the  Sandwich  Islands  and  in 
Tahiti,  and  then  afterwards  in  jNIadagascar,  was  able  to 
establish  the  essential  identity  of  the  Malagasy  with  the 
two  languages  he  had  formerly  used.  And  so  through 
all  the  various  island  groups,  the  Society,  the  Navi- 
gators, the  Hervey,  the  Tongan,  and  many  others ;  the 
instrumentality  has  been  kept  ready  for  gospel  preach- 
ing and  christian  literature. 

Let  me  take  the  reader  first  to  Australia,  to  the 
Moravian  Missions  of  Ebenezer  in  Wimmera,  and  of 
Ramahyuk  in  Gippsland.  •  Here  is  greatly  prospered 
evangelizing  work  among  the  Papuans,  an  aboriginal 
race  represented  also  in  New  Guinea,  who  are  probably 


PAPUANS   OF   AUSTRALIA.  253 

as  degraded  people  as  can  be  found  in  all  pagan  lands. 
It  is  frequently  stated,  that  a  certain  amount  of  culture 
is  required  in  order  to  receive  the  gospel  message  and 
the  leading  principles  of  Christianity.  AVhen  the  Por- 
tuguese discovered  the  Hottentots,  the}'  reported  them 
a  race  of  apes,  unfit  material  for  Church  missions.  On 
many  a  door  of  the  Cape  Colony  chapels  was  subse- 
quently nailed  the  sign  —  "  Dogs  and  Hottentots  not 
admitted."  AVe  are  told  that  the  French  governor  of 
Bourbon  said  to  the  first  Protestant  missionaries  oa 
their  way  to  Madagascar  —  "  You  will  make  the  Mala- 
gasy christians  I  —  Impossible  !  They  are  mere  brutes, 
and  have  no  more  sense  than  irrational  cattle."  Some 
twenty-one  years  ago.  Professor  Christlieb  tells  us,  an 
Englishman,,  who  had  been  around  the  world,  remarked 
in  his  hearino^  that  "the  aborioines  of  Australia  were 
quite  beyond  the  reach  of  the  Gospel,  and  that,  before 
they  could  even  understand  it,  they  must  first  go 
through  a  preliminary  course  of  general  instruction." 
But  at  many  points,  and  emphatically  here  among 
the  Papuans  of  Australia,  God  has  abundantly  an- 
swered such  inappreciation  and  unljelief.  In  the  re- 
sults of  these  ^Moravian  missions,  as  also  of  other  evan- 
gelizing efi'orts  among  the  South  Sea  cannibals,  the 
bush  negroes,  the  Pesherehs  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  and 
the  Esquimaux,  the  opinion,  still  entertained  by  many 
that  culture  must  precede  missions,  is  thoroughly  re- 
futed. Yes,  plainly  to  these  Papuans  the  gospel  mes- 
sage first  came  ;  to  them  in  all  their  extreme  barbarism  ; 
and  because  it  was  life  from  the  dead,  they  heard  it ; 
because  it  was  divinely  meant  for  the  lost,  they  found 
it.  Xo  civilization  qualified  them  to  see  ''  the  way,  the 
truth,  and  the  life,"  and  to  hear  the  ''still  small  voice" 
bidding  them  "enter."  But' their  Christianity  prompted 
them  to  a  christian  civilization.  Their  new  life  from 
above  taught  them  in  every  way  to  live  a  better  life  on 
earth.  In  part  they  followed  the  example  of  the  mis- 
sionaries, and  in  part  they  gathered  the  fresh  fruit  of 
their  own  purified  ideas  of  social  life,  and  habitation, 
and  business  intercourse.    They  have  now  clean  houses, 


254  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

pretty  chapels,  and  their  arrowroot  produce  gained  a 
prize  at  the  late  Vienna  Exposition.  Each  of  the  sta- 
tions has  its  school ;  and  they  are  quite  up  to  the 
standard  of  the  ordinary  village  schools  of  Europe  and 
America.  The  Moravian  mission-school  at  Ramahyuk 
received  a  few  years  ago  the  highest  prize  offered  by 
the  government  over  all  the  twelve  hundred  colonial 
schools.  These  converted  Papuan  "dogs,"  these  "off- 
scourings" of  the  human  race,  not  waiting  for  any  cul- 
ture before  they  heard  and  believed  in  the  gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ,  have  now  nearly  three  hundred  schools, 
with  fifteen  thousand  scholars  ;  and  besides  seven  normal 
schools,  with  one  hundred  pupils. 

It  is  well  that  Count  Von  Zinzendorf,  and  those  suc- 
cessors of  the  Hussites,  whom  he  called  from  their 
Bohemian  and  Moravian  mountains  to  his  own  Berth- 
elsdorf  and  its  famous  Herrnhut,  did  not  believe  that 
civilizing  influence  must  precede  evangelization.  It  is 
well  that  the  Count  in  his  youth,  when  at  the  Halle 
grammar-school,  where  he  helped  form  that  association 
named  "  Order  of  the  Grain  of  Mustard-Seed,"  did  not 
accept  the  teaching  that  human  culture  must  prepare 
the  way  for  the  growth  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
among  men,  but  was  enabled  to  enter  into  that  special 
compact  with  Frederick  of  Watteville  to  labor  for  the 
conversion  of  the  heathen,  and  especially  of  those  to 
whom  no  one  was  inclined  to  go.  It  is  well  that  his 
influence  has  contributed  to  send  forth  so  many  Mora- 
vian Brethren  among  earth's  most  lowly  ;  missionary  toil- 
ers, like  the  Zeisburgers,  the  Nitschmans,  the  Rouches, 
the  Martins,  and  the  Schmidts,  men  into  whom  the 
Count  was  enabled  of  God  to  ])reathe  the  spirit  of  those 
words  he  addressed  to  a  royal  princess  of  Denmark  : 
"  Christians  are  God's  people,  begotten  of  His  Spirit, 
obedient  to  Him,  enkindled  by  His  fire.  To  be  near 
the  Bridegroom  is  their  very  life ;  His  blood  is  their 
glory.  Before  the  majesty  of  the  betrothed  of  God 
kingly  crowns  grow  pale :  a  hut  to  them  becomes  a 
palace.  Sufferings,  under  which  heroes  would  pine, 
are  gladly  borne  by  loving  hearts  which  have  grown 
strong  through  the  cross." 


LEADERSHIP   OF   MORAVIANS.  255 

The  form  of  this  noble  missionary  leader  rests  in 
"  God's  acre  "  at  Hutsburg,  but  the  thirteen  hundred  of 
kindred  spirits  he  left  behind  him  in  that  community 
have  increased  in  the  home  lands  of  Saxony,  Germany, 
England  and  America,  not  to  the  millions,  for  that 
would  be  too  many  for  God's  purpose,  but  to  nineteen 
thousand.  And  their  missions  to-day,  employing  three 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  missionaries  and  one  thou- 
sand live  hundred  and  four  native  assistants,  are  located, 
not  only  in  Australia  but  also  in  Africa  and  South 
America ;  in  the  West  Indies  and  the  mountains  of 
Tibet ;  in  Mosquito,  Greenland  and  Labrador ;  and 
among  the  Indians  of  Canada,  Kansas  and  the  Indian 
Territory.  In  these  stations  they  have  enrolled  at  pres- 
ent seventy-three  thousand  one  hundred  and  seventy 
converts,  of  whom  thirty-six  thousand  four  hundred  and 
seventy-six  are  in  the  West  Indies,  twenty-one  thousand 
six  hundred  and  thirty-six  in  South  America,  ten  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  nineteen  in  Africa,  and  the  remainder 
are  scattered  throughout  the  other  stations.  Still  all 
this  work  is  superintended  at  Herrnhut,  upon  the  Huts- 
burg, in  Saxony,  by  a  synod  composed  of  delegates 
from  all  the  provinces,  including  the  mission  stations. 
This  synod  elects  a  "  Unity  Elders'  Conference,"  or  Ex- 
ecutive Board.  This  Board  has  four  departments,  one 
of  which  oversees  the  foreign  mission  work.  Under 
their  economical  management  the  entire  annual  expense 
of  the  Moravian  missions  does  not  exceed  two  hundred 
and  sixty  thousand  dollars.  It  is  wonderful  how  this  is 
raised.  The  Labrador  mission  is  supported  by  a  band 
of  brethren  in  London,  organized  in  1741,  which  owns 
the  little  vessel  "  Harmony,"  that  has  made  over  a  hun- 
dred voyages  to  this  land,  and  by  its  profits  the  London 
baud  nearly  supports  the  Labrador  mission.  In  other 
ways  other  annual  grants  are  secured  from  auxiliary 
societies  which  do  business  for  the  Lord.  Two  of  the 
missions,  the  one  in  Surinam,  and  the  other  in  Southwest 
Africa,  are  self-supporting,  and  the  West  Indian  is 
nearly  so.  In  all  stations  converts  are  taught  both  to 
give  liberally  in  direct  contributions,  and  through  the 


256  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

setting  apart  of  shares  in  their  agricultural  and  manufac- 
turing products.  The  balance  of  ninety-two  thousand 
dollars  annually  is  made  up  by  the  INIission  Board.  Trul}^ 
the  Christian  world  may  be  grateful  for  the  example  of 
the  "  Unitas  Fratrum,"  the  Brethren's  Unity,  as  these 
Moravians  call  themselves. 

In  Point  Macleay,  Southern  Adelaide,  the  Scotch 
Presbyterian  Mission  has  in  a  like  manner  been  pros- 
pered, as  also  many  others  which  have  come  eventually 
to  be  adopted  by  the  missions  of  the  Australian  English 
christians.  A  similar  work  has  been  carried  on  in  New 
Zealand  among  the  aboriginal  Maori.  The  three  islands 
of  New  Zealand  were  formed  into  a  British  colony  in 
1840,  and  now  contain  a  European  population  of  nearly 
four  hundred  thousand,  and  forty  thousand  Maori.  These 
latter  people  are  naturally  ferocious  in  the  extreme. 
When  first  approached  Avith  mission  efforts  their  various 
clans  were  given  to  perpetual  w^arfare,  and  cannibalism 
Avas  the  usual  result  of  victory.  They  worshipped  a 
supernatural  power  called  Atua,  as  also  their  ancestors. 
Every  child  at  birth  was  dedicated  to  some  fierce  spirit  of 
evil.  These  Maori  live  mostly  in  the  north  island,  and 
here  for  the  christianization  of  these  wretched  people  the 
English  Church  ^Missionary  Society  and  the  "VVesleyans 
have  worked  side  by  side  for  many  years.  It  was  chiefly 
through  their  instrumentality  that  the  chiefs  signed  the 
treaty  that  averted  war,  and  placed  the  country  under 
the  sovereignty  of  Britain.  The  native  "king  move- 
ment "  and  the  "  Hau-hau "  superstition  have  since  very 
much  complicated  and  apparently  hindered  the  w^ork,  but 
both  are  beginning  to  he  overruled  for  good.  Many  of 
the  Maori  christians  have  stood  firm  all  through  their 
fiery  trials.  They  have  shown  themselves  inspired  with 
the  same  spirit  of  their  missionary  Volkner,  Avhom  their 
fellow-countrymen  murdered.  When  this  martyr  was 
led  to  his  execution,  he  asked  for  his  prayer-book.  It 
Avas  handed  him,  and  then  he  knelt  doAvn  and  prayed. 
Arising,  he  shook  hands  Avith  his  executioner  in  to- 
ken of  forgiveness,  even  as  the  Master  Avho  prayed, 
"  Father,  forgive  them  !  "     And  then  he  gave  the  signal, 


NEW  ZEALAND  AND  CELEBES.  257 

saying,  "I  am  ready  !  "  But  the  missionary  ranks  filled 
up,  and  the  soldiers  of  Christ  fought  on.  They  preached 
in  a  language  in  which  they  could  find  no  words  for 
"peace,"  "grace,"  "hope,"  "  charity,"  though  many  ex- 
pressing the  natural  passions,  as  "joy,"  "  anger," 
''  sorrow."  To-day  there  are  nearly  eleven  thousand 
native  adherents,  including  two  thousand  communicants  in 
connection  with  the  Church  xVlission,  and  three  thousand 
more  of  the  former  associated  with  the  Wesleyans.  The 
latter  society,  including  the  colonists,  reports  three  thou- 
sand six  hundred  and  fifteen  communicants,  and  thirty- 
two  thousand  attending  divine  worship .  The  Propagation 
Society  lias  almost  entirely  withdrawn  its  assistance  from 
the  New  Zealand  English  Church,  divided  into  six 
dioceses,  with  synods  both  diocesan  and  provincial  in 
full  workino^  order.  The  Hermannsburs:  German  Mis- 
sion  supports  three,  stations  at  these  islands. 

AVhen  we  look  for  the  mission  work  among  the  thtee 
large  north-western  islands  of  the  South  Pacific  Archi- 
pelago, we  are  comparatively  disappointed.  The  waves 
of  evangelizing  power  from  Europe  and  Asia  have  mostly 
swept  by  them  and  l)roken  upon  other  shores.  The 
gracious  influences  from  America  by  way  of  the  Sand- 
wich Islands  have  lingered  chiefly  among  the  popula- 
tions to  the  East.  Several  causes  have  conspired  to 
this.  Chief  among  them  has  probably  been  the  large 
Moslem  element  in  the  populations  of  Java  and  Suma- 
tra. The  religion  of  j^iahomet,  as  we  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  fully  consider  farther  on,  renders  people  more 
inaccessible  to  the  Gospel  than  paganism.  The  govern- 
ment favor,  which  naturally  fiills  to  this,  the  more  en- 
terprising portion  of  the  population,  serves  probably  to 
strengthen  the  opposition  to  christian  influences.  Then, 
we  have  to  make  the  confession,  the  Dutch  East  Indies 
have  been  much  more  frequented  by  foreigners,  the 
false  commercial  and  political  representatives  of  chris- 
tian lands,  than  Polynesia.  In  the  Celebes,  which  has 
been  sheltered  as  it  were  from  these  influences  under 
the  lee  of  Borneo,  we  find  the  most  prosperous  of  the 
Dutch  missions.     Its  great  peninsula  of  Minahassa  is 


258  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

now  virtually  christian.  Eighty  thousand  of  its  one 
hundred  and  fourteen  thousand  inhabitants  are  adher- 
ents of  the  church,  gathered  into  one  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  centres,  and  supporting  one  hundred  and 
twenty-live  schools.  But  we  could  hardly  have  antici- 
pated such  glorious  results  as  Mr.  Nourdenburg  re- 
ported at  the  last  Mildmay  Conference,  had  Batavia 
with  its  forest  of  shipping  been  a  port  of  Celebes,  or 
had  Singapore  been  as  near  to  Minahassa  as  Sumatra  is 
to  the  Malayan  peninsula. 

The  Dutch  have  lately  established  missions  in  Java, 
with  a  seminary  for  evangelists  at  Depok.  There  is  a 
Rhenish  mission  in  South  Borneo  ;  and  at  the  north 
of  the  great  island  the  missionaries  of  the  Propagation 
Society  have  been  laboring  for  many  years,  and  have 
gathered  over  a  thousand  converts.  The  Rhenish  mis- 
sion is  engaging  in  still  more  extensive  labors  among 
the  Battas  in  Sumatra,  among  whom,  including  the  na- 
tives of  Borneo  and  Nias,  there  are  nearly  five  thousand 
christian  adherents  associated  with  twenty-five  German 
missionaries.  The  vast  mission  field  of  New  Guinea 
has  been  occupied  by  the  Dutch  missionaries  upon  the 
northwest,  and  for  the  last  ten  years  upon  the  south- 
east by  the  London  Missionary  Society.  It  is  reported 
that  lately  several  of  these  valiant  laborers  have  been 
massacred.  The  missionaries  of  this  latter  agency  find 
great  difficulty  on  account  of  the  unhealthiness  of  the 
localit}^  Yet  we  learn  that  one  of  their  number,  Mr. 
Chalmers,  even  after  his  wife  had  succumbed  to  the 
malaria,  and  the  time  had  arrived  when  he  was  entitled 
to  a  furlough  by  the  rules  of  his  society,  refused  for 
the  love  of  his  work  to  return  to  England,  and  joined 
his  companions  in  the  interior ;  and  perhaps  now  he 
has  fallen  at  his  post,  slain  by  the  savages  he  sought  to 
save.  Such  consecration  should  silence  all  calumnies, 
and  stir  far  more  deeply  the  heart  of  home  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  fathers  of  the  London  Missionary  Society  were 
not  mistaken  in  making  Polynesia  the  scene  of  their 
first  missionary  enterprise.     Other  lands  were  closed 


TAHITI.  259 

to  them.  They  knocked  at  many  doors  but  were  re- 
fused iidmittance.  Those  were  days  when  even  chris- 
tian governments  considered  heathen  populations  as 
having  only  a  commercial  value  ;  if  not  slaves  to  be 
bought  and  sold,  at  least  as  mere  producers  and  con- 
sumers of  wealth,  might  making  right  to  the  lion's 
share  of  the  profits.  Those  were  days  in  which  every 
effort  was  made  to  keep  missionaries  from  interfering 
with  the  religions  of  the  natives,  from  fear  that  it  would 
excite  rebellion,  multiply  the  difficulties  of  administra- 
tion, and  lessen  the  gains  of  trade.  Those,  too,  were 
days  when  foreign  appointments  in  civil  service  meant 
as  a  rule  the  leaving  behind  of  all  virtuous  principles, 
the  entrance  upon  a  life  of  dishonesty  and  immorality ; 
and  thus  from  ten  to  twenty  years  from  which  the  far- 
ther away  the  missionary  and  all  christian  influences 
the  better.  The  grand  secret  of  the  opposition  of  the 
vast  majority  of  the  official  and  commercial  classes,  dur- 
ing so  many  years,  to  mission  enterprise  in  the  Orient, 
was  a  personal  one.  They  had  left  home  with  its 
hallowed  associations,  all  intercourse  with  pure  society, 
all  honest  fair  dealing  in  business,  and  they  did  not 
want  to  be  compelled  to  stand  liefore  the  clear  mirror 
of  christian  missionary  life  and  labor.  They  made  any 
numl^er  of  other  excuses,  but  this  was  the  heart  of  their 
resistance. 

But  onward,  nevertheless,  the  hand  of  the  Divine 
Leader  guided  safely.  The  London  Missionary  Society 
was  directed  first  to  Tahiti,  a  large  island  of  the  Society 
group,  far  to  the  eastward  in  Polynesia.  This  they  have 
made  the  basis  of  extensive  missionary  operations 
among  the  islands  of  Australasia,  Hervey,  Samoa,  Toke- 
lav,  and  Ellice.  It  was  a  bitter  disappointment  at  first 
to  leave  great  centres  of  Asiatic  population,  and  locate 
in  this  far  out  of  the  way  part  of  the  world,  among  people 
accustomed  to  cannibalism,  infanticide  and  human  sacri- 
fices ;  but  the  Lord's  way  was  best ;  and  now  these 
above  groups  are  almost  entirely  christian.  Only 
among  the  Ellice  islands  are  heathen  still  to  be  found. 
Connected  with  this  mission  in  Polynesia  are  at  present 


260  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

thirty  thousand  native  adherents,  mcludingten  thousand 
seven  hundred  church  members,  three  hundred  and 
eleven  native  preachers,  two  hundred  and  seventy-three 
native  ordained  ministers,  superintended  hy  nineteen 
English  missionaries.  They  support  one  hundred  and 
sixteen  schools  with  nearly  ten  thousand  scholars.  The 
local  annual  contributions  of  the  christians  amount  to 
little  short  of  twenty-three  thousand  dollars.  The 
Wesleyans  have  very  successful  missions  in  the  Tonga 
group  of  Islands,  to  the  southwest,  where  they  report 
one  hundred  and  twenty-six  churches,  eight  thousand 
three  hundred  communicants,  and  over  seventeen  thou- 
sand persons  attending  upon  their  religious  services. 
They  also  sustain  one  hundred  and  twenty-two  schools 
with  five  thousand  scholars. 

In  1842  the  work  in  Tahiti  received  a  serious  check 
by  the  French  assumption  of  protectorate  of  the  island. 
The  Roman  Catholic  authorities  enforced  many  embar- 
rassing restrictions  which  have  only  lately  been  re- 
moved. The  present  liberal  government  of  France  is 
consistently  applying  its  principles  of  religious  toler- 
ation and  of  almost  complete  religious  lilierty  to  its 
most  remote  colonies.  So,  now,  in  Tahiti  the  English 
missionaries,  after  thirty-seven  years  of  repression, 
have  the  same  rights  as  the  French  pastors,  and  can 
preach  anywhere  without  previous  authorization. 

Two  hundred  miles  south  is  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting outstations  of  this  mission.  It  is  upon  Rurutu, 
the  queen  island  of  the  Austral  group.  Its  people -are 
christian,  industrious  and  intelligent.  They  are  also 
very  generous.  A  late  impressive  instance  of  consecra- 
tion is  reported  from  that  community,  which  furnishes 
good  example  to  christian  parents  in  the  home  lands. 
A  l)rother  Turiano  had  two  sons,  who  were  converts, 
and  whom  he  had  thoroughly  educated.  The  eldest  ho 
gave  readily  upon  call  to  the  foreign  mission  work 
among  the  Papuans  in  'New  Guinea.  But  death  soon 
removed  his  consecration  from  the  visible  altar,  and  the 
other  son  felt  called  to  take  his  brother's  place.  The 
father  was  feeble,  and  needed  his  son  very  much  at 


POLYNESIA.  261 

home.  But  when,  then,  the  missionary  hinted,  "Perhaps 
he  had  better  stay,"  —  "No,  no,"  was  the  reply  of 
this  convert  from  cannibalism  and  the  lowest  idolatries, 
"no,  no  ;  take  him  with  you;  it  is  the  Lord's  will  and 
the  Lord's  work  ;  he* must  go,  l)ut  I  shall  miss  iiim." 

Note  the  eagerness  of  the  wretchedly  poor  natives  of 
Rapa,  another  of  the  Austral  group,  to  seize  an  oppor- 
tunity of  purchasing  God's  Word.  Lately  ]Mr.  Green 
of  Taliiti  landed  there  with  a  supply  of  Bibles.  The 
natives  wanted  them  all,  but  the  missionary  was  not 
authorized  to  give  away,  and  there  were  not  five  dollars 
of  money  in  the  whole  island.  However  he  sold  them 
all  on  credit,  trusting  to  remittances  from  money  to  be 
received  from  the  ship's  purchases  of  provisions  on 
land.  He  thus  disposed  of  over  one  hundred  dollars' 
worth  of  Bibles.  Anxious  to  redeem  their  pledges, 
gladly  made  and  in  perfect  honesty,  the  natives  brought 
their  fowls  and  pigs  and  goats  to  the  oflScer,  and  every 
promised  dollar  was  paid  to  the  missionary.  And  this 
among  a  population  of  only  one  hundred  and  forty 
persons  ;  so  poor  that  even  the  women  were  dressed  in 
o^arments  of  oTass. 

A  moment  at  another  island,  that  of  Mangaila.  In 
the  village  of  Oneroa  the  native  christians  last  year 
opened  their  new  school-house.  They  had  been  for 
several  months  erecting  this  building,  contributing  all 
the  manual  labor,  and  expending  out  of  their  own 
mouej^  nearly  a  thousand  dollars  for  materials.  It  was  a 
tremendous  strain  for  these  Oneroan  christians.  More 
than  half  of  all  they  had  in  the  world  was  probal)ly  re- 
quired for  the  enterprise.  And  yet  their  missionary 
Harris  writes  that  this  outlay  has  not  in  the  least  caused 
any  diminution  of  their  contributions  to  the  general 
mission  work  of  the  home  society  in  London.  How 
this  shames  the  majority  of  churches  in  the  older  chris- 
tian lands,  whose  missionary  contributions  are  so  sure 
to  fall  ofi"  if  they  have  anything  special  on  hand.  If 
they  are  building  or  repairing  or  refurnishing  their 
sanctuary ;  if  they  are  trying  to  pay  up  a  debt ;  or  if 
in  the  rivalry  for  pulpit  talent  they  have  been  tempted 


262  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

to  offer  too  grand  a  salary  for  their  means,  then  largely 
the  missionary  treasury  must  suffer.  The  gratifications 
at  home  must  receive  attention,  though  hundreds  of 
millions  of  the  heathen  world  have  never  yet  heard  of 
the  Gospel.  How  much  more  in  a(!cord  with  the  spirit 
and  example  of  the  ])i\'ine  3»Iaster  the  conduct  of  those 
Polynesian  converts,  so  lately  turning  from  their  canni- 
balism and  human  sacrifices  to  worship  and  serve  the 
living  God ! 

We  turn  to  Melanesia,  and  hasten  to  Fiji,  where  the 
Wesley  an  s  have  l^een  enabled  of  God  to  conduct  one  of 
the  most  successful  of  all  the  missions  of  the  w^orld. 
The  English  governor  ^vas  able  to  report  at  the  annual 
meeting  two  years  since,  concerning  people  who  were 
notorious  a  few  years  ago  for  their  savage  cruelties, 
their  infanticide  and  human  sacrifices, — "Out  of  a 
population  of  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand, 
one  hundred  and  two  thousand  are  now  regular  wor- 
shippers in  the  churches,  which  number  eight  hundred, 
all  well  built  and  completed.  In  every  family  there  is 
morning  and  evening  Avorship.  Over  forty-two  thou- 
sand children  are  in  attendance  in  the  fifteen  hundred  and 
thirty-four  christian  day-schools.  The  heathenism  which 
still  exists  in  the  mountain  districts,  surrounded  as  it  is 
on  all  sides  by  a  christian  population  on  the  coast,  is 
rapidly  dying  out."  What  lessons  from  these  converted 
human  tigers  to  home  christians,  who  neglect  family 
prayer ;  to  that  large  proportion  of  every  community 
which  does  not  frequent  the  house  of  God  ;  and  to  the 
youth  of  our  land  who  are  so  restless  to  finish  their 
school  life ! 

The  New  Hebrides,  thouo:h  coveted  ])v  the  French 
on  account  of  their  adjoining  penal  settlement  of  New 
Caledonia  to  the  south,  are  still  an  independent  Mela- 
nesian  nation.  The  group  of  islands  is  four  hundred 
miles  in  length,  has  an  area  of  three  thousand  five  hun- 
dred square  miles,  and  a  population  of  one  hundred 
thousand.  At  Aneityum,  the  most  southern  island  of 
this  group,  in  the  little  mission  church,  one  may  read 
this  short  biography  in  the  epitaph  over  the  remains  of 


MELANESIA.  263 

Dr.  John  Geddis,  —  "When  he  came  here  there  were 
no  Christians ;  Avhen  he  left  there  were  no  heathen." 
The  converts,  who  survive  him,  have  lately  invested 
$3,500  in  a  new  edition  of  the  Word  of  God.  In  the 
second  island  north  the  natives  have  eaten  up  already 
four  Presbyterian  foreign  missionaries,  and  more  are 
ready  for  the  horrid  martyrdom,  if  it  be  God's  will. 
Mr.  Williams  left  a  companion  two  days  l)efore  to 
occupy  Ipare,  and  pushed  on  to  sow  the  seed  in  Ero- 
manga.  But  they  murdered  him,  and  feasted  upon  his 
body.  This  was  in  1839.  In  May,  1861,  Mr.  Gordon 
and  wife  sutfered  a  similar  martyrdom  at  the  hands 
of  these  ^Nlelanesians.  In  1872  Mr.  Gordon's  brother 
bravely  endeavored  to  try  them  again  with  the  gospel 
message,  but  they  ate  him  also.  The  year  previous, 
Bishop  Patterson,  of  the  English  Episcopal  Church, 
met  a  glorious  martyr's  death,  at  the  work  of  his  mis- 
sion still  to  the  north,  more  especially  among  the 
Banks,  Santa  Cruz,  and  Solomon  islands.  AA^ith  such 
spirit  of  consecration  the  work  has  gone  on,  till  now  in 
Polynesia  there  are  over  thirty-six  thousand  christians, 
in  Melanesia  over  thirty  thousand,  in  Micronesia  some 
fifteen  hundred ;  or  of  mission  adherents  in  all  three 
hundred  and  forty  thousand. 


264 


CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


SIAM    AND    ANAM. 

ROM  Singapore  I  sent  my  family  on  to 
Bm-mah,  there  to  aAvait  me,  Avliile  I  made 
a  visit  to  Siam.  It  was  a  three  days' 
voyage  to  Bangkok.  Our  steamer  belonged 
to  a  Dutch  company,  which  has  made  great 
fortunes  from  the  long  continued  war  in  Su- 
matra. The  captain  said  his  little  vessel  was 
clearing  about  $25,000  per  month  liy  transportation  of 
supplies.  So  it  is,  there  are  ever  those  who  make  gain 
out  of  the  miseries  of  others.  Upon  the  right  up  the 
Gulf  of  Siam,  we  passed  French  Cochin-China,  and 
Camboja,  the  tributary  of  the  Kingdom  of  Anam, 
though  under  French  protection.  ^A^ere  not  so  many 
other  lands  of  Southern  and  ^Vestern  Asia  demanding 
our  attention  before  the  coming  winter  and  spring  shall 
have  passed,  I  would  have  gladly  remained  a  fortnight 
among  this  interesting  Indu-Chinese  population  of  ten 
millions.  However,  neither  the  south  nor  southwest 
would  be  the  most  desirable  points  for  observation,  but 
rather  the  more  inaccessible  eastern  central  coast  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  Anam  capital  of  Hue,  better  known  by 
the  French  especially  in  the  time  of  Louis  XIY.,  and 
still  more  desirable  the  northern  province  of  Tonquin, 
the  most  populous  and  valuable  part  of  the  Anamese 
empire.  The  manners  and  customs,  the  iron,  silver  and 
gold  mines,  the  cotton,  silk  and  spice  productions  Avould 
all  interest  the  tourist ;  but  I  should  be  especially  in- 
clined to  study  the  religious  condition  of  the  people, 
their  reaction  from  that  Buddhism  that  must  have  so 
flourished  among  them  in  the  fourteenth  century,  when 


LARGE    UNOCCUPIED    FIELD.  265 

the  splendid  temple  of  "Nakhon  What "  was  in  its  glory, 
and  also  the  peculiar  growths  of  Confucianism  and  ances- 
tral worship,  the  former  transplanted  fi^om  China  and 
assimilated  with  the  Animism  of  the  a]:)origines .  It 
would  seem  that  among  these  millions  "the  Light  of 
Asia"  has  burnt  very  nearl\'  out.  With  the  people 
there  is  very  little  Buddhistic 'devotion,  and  the  priest- 
hood, so  numerous  in  other  countries,  are  here  very  few 
and  very  little  respected.  The  bonzes,  ^\ho  once  were 
omnipresent  and  all-powerful,  are  now  what  the  Gypsies 
are  in  America  and  Europe,  roving  vagal)onds.  The 
spacious  temples  of  the  centuries  past  have  given 
place  to  mean  little  idol-houses,  Avhere  often  the  people 
repair  to  thrash  their  Buddhas  with  bamboo  sticks,  if 
they  have  not  had  their  desires  granted  :  when  more 
leniently  disposed,  they  will  simply  turn  their  idol 
around  with  his  face  to  the  Avail.  The  populations  seem 
to  have  wearied  of  the  religious  principles  of  Siddhartha 
on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  frequently  imposed  phi- 
losophy of  Kong-foo-tse  on  the  other,  and  to  have  fallen 
back  into  a  veneration  of  ancestral  and  other  spirits, 
that  Animism  in  its  later  stage  of  development  which 
preceded  this  religion  and  this  philosophy.  Here  is  a 
country  nearly  a  thousand  miles  long,  and  from  sixty 
to  one  hundred  and  eight}'  miles  w^ide,  Avith  an  area  of 
ninety-eight  thousand  square  miles,  and  Avith  a  popula- 
tion tAvice  as  great  as  Ireland,  Avithout  a  single  Protes- 
tant missionary.  The  Roman  Catholics  exercise  some 
christian  influence  from  Saigon,  the  seat  of  the  French 
government,  Avhich  has  assumed  the  protection  of  the 
six  adjoining  provinces.  This  foreign  influence,  with 
the  liberal  policy  adopted  at  Paris  under  the  new^  re- 
gime, Avill  be  somcAvhat  of  a  help  in  evangelization 
throughout  Anam.  France  desires  to  strengthen  her  OAvn 
influence  throughout  the  entire  country,  and  ultimately 
build  up  out  of  that  Avhole  southeastern  peninsula  of 
Asia,  Siam  iucluded,  a  colonial  empire  that  shall  rival 
the  India  of  Great  Britain.  She  must  then  jjursue  a 
conciliatory  policy,  and,  Avhile  steadily  pressing  her  ag- 
gressions, consistently  apply  the  principles  of  religious 


266  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

toleration.  There  are  two  stations,  which  should  be 
immediately  occupied  by  foreign  mission  societies,  one 
at  Saigon  and  the  other  at  Hue.  From  the  former  an 
out-station  should  promptly  be  secured  at  Penom-peng, 
the  capital  of  the  vice-royalty  of  Camboja,  a  city  of 
thirty  thousand  inhabitants.  From  the  Anam  capital  of 
Hue  an  out-station,  or  l^etter,  on  account  of  the  great 
distance,  an  independent  third  station  should  be  occupied 
at  Tonquin,  a  city  with  a  population  of  about  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand.  This  vice-royal  capital  of  the 
northern  province,  frequently  called  Ke-Cho,  or  Cachao, 
or  Bak-than,  is  nearly  a  hundred  miles  from  the  sea, 
upon  the  Tonquin  or  Song-Ka  river,  at  whose  mouth  is 
one  of  the  best  harbors  of  the  entire  Asiatic  coast.  This 
old  kingdom,  l^nng  between  Anam  proper  and  China's 
provinces  of  Kwang-si  and  Yun-nan,  is  very  rich  in  its 
productions,  and,  though  the  people  have  fallen  under 
the  cruel  domination  of  the  Anamese  power,  they  are 
more  intelligent,  enterprising  and  amiable  than  their 
conquerors.  There  is  surely  a  rich  field  here  for  mis- 
sion labor.  A  large  Chinese  population  is  pouring  in, 
and  the  climate  is  very  healthy.  Particularly  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river  Hu^  the  air  is  salubrious,  and  this 
part  of  Turon  was  famed  among  the  early  Portuguese 
and  Dutch  explorers  as  the  finest  harbor  of  the  world. 
It  is  large,  land-locked,  and  completely  surrounded  by 
mountains.  The  capital  is  only  nine  miles  distant,  with 
its  five  miles  of  walls,  which  the  great  king  Kia-long,  un- 
der advice  of  French  oflicers,  had  constructed  in  the 
early  part  of  the  present  century.  The  whole  fortress 
is  an  admirable  piece  of  workmanship,  surrounded  with 
water,  the  spacious  streets  of  the  city  within  being  laid 
out  at  right  angles.  We  are  told  that  nothing  of  this 
extensive  fortification  is  slovenly,  barbarous,  or  incom- 
plete, and  that  it  would  do  no  discredit  to  a  European 
army.  All  these  facts  are  evidences  of  an  interesting 
population,  and  reminders  of  French  influence,  and  of  a 
French  treaty  that  may  still  be  considered  as  only  held 
in  abeyance,  as  also  of  the  Portuguese  Jesuit  enterprise 
immediately  subsequent  to  the  persecution  and  massacre 


267 

of  the  christians  in  Japan.  There  are  over  half  a  million 
in  the  Anamese  empire  professing  adherence  to  the  Roman 
church,  but  they  are  of  the  poorest  and  most  abject 
classes,  not  strongly  attached,  and  give  an  added  feature 
of  encouragement  to  the  immediate  opening  up  of 
Protestant  missions  in  this  neglected  part  of  the  world. 

Siam  is  not  known  to  the  natives  by  that  name,  but 
is  called  by  them  Muang  T'hai,  "The  Kingdom  of  the 
Free."  It  has  an  area  of  over  two  hundred  thousand 
square  miles,  and  a  population  of  probably  not  far 
from  eight  millions,  of  whom  upward  of  two  millions 
are  Chinese  and  fifty  thousand  are  Karens.  Its  legen- 
dary history  dates  back  to  500  B.  C,  but  its  authentic 
records  begin  with  the  founding  of  the  ancient  capital, 
Ayuthia,  in  A.  D.  1350.  The  modern  capital  of  Bang- 
kok is  forty  miles  farther  down  the  great  Menam 
river,  thirty  miles  from  its  mouth.  In  1782,  the  royal 
court  was  transferred  to  this  "The  City  of  Kings,"  as  it 
is  called  by  the  natives,  or  "The  Venice  of  the  East," 
as  it  has  been  not  inappropriately  designated  by  Euro- 
peans, on  account  of  its  water  highways  and  the  many 
dwellings  out  from  the  river  banks.  The  government 
is  an  absolute  monarchy  in  the  persons  of  a  first  and  a 
second  king.  The  language  is  a  tonal  tongue,  words 
havino'  different  meanino^s  accordino-  to  the  tone  in  which 
they  are  uttered.  The  Siamese  is  written  under  the 
line  from  the  left  of  the  page.  The  national  religion  is 
Buddhism,  and  has  more  complete  sway  than  in  any 
other  country  with  the  possible  exception  of  Tibet. 
Apostasy  is  almost  as  much  of  a  crime  as  treason.  No 
man  can  become  an  oflSce-holder,  not  even  the  king,  un- 
til a  short  term,  at  least,  has  been  served  in  the  priest- 
hood. It  has  been  truthfully  said  that  the  first  chapter 
of  Romans  describes  their  morals.  Polygamy  is  com- 
mon. Women  do  most  of  the  work,  remaining  mere 
drudges  in  Lower  Siam,  while  in  the  Laos  country  this 
monopoly  of  labor  gives  them  almost  the  position  of 
masters  of  the  men.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  slavery 
throughout  the  land,  but  it  is  being  ameliorated  by  the 
present  government,  whose    king,  Somdetya   Chowfa, 


268  CHKISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

has  decreed  that  all  born  slaves  become  free  at  twenty- 
one  years  of  age.  The  late  king,  Pra  Chaum  Klow, 
who  ruled  from  1851  to  1868,  was  literary  and  pro- 
gressive ;  gave  his  son,  the  present  king,  an  education 
under  an  English  governess,  and  invited  the  wives  of 
missionaries  to  instruct  the  women  of  his  harem.  The 
Bismarck  of  the  Siamese  throne  to-day  is  the  late  re- 
gent, who  ruled  from  1868  to  1873,  when  Somdetya 
Chowfa  reached  his  majority.  I  saw  an  evidence  of 
this  in  the  architecture  of  the  new  palace.  It  was  de- 
signed by  foreign  ai'chitects  on  a  very  beautiful  and  ex- 
pensive plan.  But  finally,  when  the  workmen  were 
putting  on  the  dome,  the  ex-regent  interfered  with  the 
king's  idea  of  building,  and  insisted  that  they  nmst  not 
have  anything  up  so  high  that  was  not  distinctively 
Siamese.  And  so  an  elaborately  ornamented  pagoda 
had  to  be  substituted  for  the  dome.  Of  this  king  it  has 
been  truly  said, —  "  Next  to  the  mikado  of  Japan,  he  is 
the  most  progressive  sovereign  in  Asia."  He  dresses 
in  European  clothing,  and  has  abolished  the  custom  of 
prostrations  in  his  presence.  I  was  driven  around 
Bangkok  with  a  horse  and  carriage  he  had  presented  to 
one  of  the  missionaries.  In  1877,  he  and  his  nobles 
gave  twenty-two  hundred  dollars  toward  the  mission 
school-building  at  Petclial)uri.  Ever  since  1855,  and 
Sir  John  Bowrins^'s  intercession  on  behalf  of  the  mis- 
sionaries  at  this  time  of  the  treaty  negotiations,  all  re- 
strictions have  been  removed,  and  in  1878,  a  procla- 
mation of  religious  liberty  to  the  Laos  was  made. 
Practically,  however,  everywhere  such  liberty  is  scarcely 
more  than  the  harshest  kind  of  toleration.  In  1879,  a 
few  months  before  my  visit,  the  king  had  established  a 
general  educational  system  appointing  the  Presbyterian 
missionary  S.  G.  McFarland,  superintendent  of  public 
instruction  at  an  annual  salary  of  live  thousand  dollars. 
As  would  be  expected  in  this  intensely  Buddhistic  land, 
the  opposition  of  the  bonzes  is  aroused  against  this  in- 
novation, and  much  as  we  may  wish  well  to  the  arrange- 
ment, it  is  very  questionable  whether  it  can  work. 
Missionary  efforts  in  Siam  date  back  to  1828.     From 


DENOMINATIONAL   DIVISION    OF   LABOR. 

1833  to  1851,  there  was  a  Baptist  mission  among  the 
Siamese.  The  American  Board  commenced  labors  in 
1834.  The  folio  wing'  year  a  mission  among  the  Chinese 
of  Siam  was  established  by  Baptists  of  America,  and 
their  missionary  Dr.  Dean  is  still  laboring  at  Bangkok, 
unassisted  but  by  his  frail  companion,  who  is  rapidly 
now  running  a  race  with  her  husband  to  heaven.  Sel- 
dom in  any  part  of  the  great  mission  tield  have  I  had 
my  sympathies  for  the  mission  toilers  so  deeply  stirred, 
as  in  meeting  at  their  work  these  two  veterans  in  the 
service,  with  so  much  to  do,  and  no  assistance  but  from 
above.  Although  there  is  some  independent  Siamese 
Baptist  mission  work  being  carried  on  in  Bangkok,  yet 
in  a  very  commendable  spirit  of  christian  deference,  the 
arrangement  for  many  3'ears  has  been  that  the  Presby- 
terians labor  among  the  Siamese  people,  and  the  Bap- 
tist mission  confines  itself  to  the  Chinese  populations. 
But  so  long  has  the  latter  station  been  calling  in  vain  for 
reinforcement,  that  in  the  presence  of  the  vast  and  rap- 
idly increasing  Chinese  responsibility,  the  Presbyterian 
Board  is  fully  justified  in  seriously  considering  the  ques- 
tion of  assuming  double  responsibility  in  Siam.  These 
denominational  deferences  are  well  up  to  a  limit ;  but 
they  must  not  stand  in  the  way  of  the  efficiency  of 
Christ's  work.  Each  mission  has  had  about  the  same 
amount  of  encourao^ement  in  this  difficult  field.  Each 
should  be  reinforced,  and  continue  to  be  well  supported. 
Probably  both  would  receive  a  healthful  impetus  by  the 
abandonment  of  the  old  division  of  labor,  and  by  the 
working  henceforth,  side  by  side,  more  intimately 
among  both  the  Siamese  and  Chinese  populations. 
Should  both  missions  have  their  Siamese  and  Chinese 
departments,  regularly  authorized  and  supported,  the 
little  incidental  frictions  and  embarrassments  would  be 
more  than  counterbalanced  by  tne  fraternal  emulation 
excited  both  umong  the  missionaries  and  the  native  con- 
verts, by  the  corresponding  inducement  to  increase  of 
spiritual  and  financial  support  at  home,  and  by  more 
consultation  and  demonstration  of  the  real  spirit  of 
christian  unity  than  under  the  present  division  of  labor. 


270  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

The  frequently-mooted  plan  of  denominational  divis- 
ion of  labor  among  the  foreign  mission  stations  needs 
reconsideration.  Lately  it  was  proposed  in  Japan,  that 
all  the  missions  should  be  represented  in  a  delegation 
that  should  map  out  the  country,  apportioning  to  each 
denomination  its  sphere  of  work.  Anxieties  are  fre- 
quently felt  both  by  missionaries  and  their  home  con- 
stituencies lest  there  be  infringement  upon  pre-empted 
territory.  But  I  have  observed  that,  as  a  rule,  those 
mission  stations  of  whatever  church  or  denomination, 
which  are  left  entirely  by  themselves,  both  for  the  pres- 
ent and  the  prospective  future,  do  not  show  that  activ- 
ity and  develop  that  strength,  which  are  manifested  in 
those  mission  fields  where  the  presence  or  imminence  of 
emulation  has  been  felt.  It  was  evident  in  Yokohama 
that  Presbyterians  and  Methodists  were  prompting  each 
other  to  a  larger  measure  of  evangelizing  enterprise 
than  either  would  have  commanded  with  all  the  respon- 
sibility in  the  hands  of  a  single  mission,  even  though 
reinforced  to  the  full  extent  of  the  other  denomination's 
resources  of  men  and  means.  The  London  mission  and 
the  Wesleyans  in  their  common  work  at  Han-kow  illus- 
trate by  their  mutual  interchanges  and  reciprocities  the 
higher  ardor  enkindled  by  the  praiseworthy  examples  of 
others.  Were  all  the  missionaries  under  one  direction, 
the  dispensary,  for  example,  of  the  London  Society 
would  be  considered  sufficient  for  the  locality.  As  it  is, 
the  Wesleyans  are  moving  to  have  another.  In  this 
world  of  imperfect  christians  this  emulating  motive 
seems  needed  to  secure  an  adequate  measure  of  liberal- 
ity. Under  the  present  circumstances,  two  medical 
institutions  can  be  more  easily  supported  in  Han-kow, 
than  the  effort  could  be  made  with  one  alone  to  increase 
its  capacity  by  half,  or  even  one-third.  The  American 
Episcopal  Mission  right  across  the  river  at  Wu-chang  is 
plainly  in  the  current  of  this  stimulating  reciprocity. 
In  Burmah  the  Baptists  have  never  been  so  stirred  up 
in  regard  to  their  missions  as  since  the  advent  of  the 
Propagation  Society  and  the  Methodists.  It  has  gener- 
ally been  conceded  to  them,  on  account  of  Judson  and 


DIFFERENT    SOCIETIES    IN    SAME    FIELD.  271 

his  successors,  as  their  pre-empted  territory  of  the  mis- 
sion held.  So  well  have  they  sustained  their  work 
among  the  Burmans,  Karens,  and  Shans,  and  so  glo- 
rious have  been  the  results,  particularly  among  the  Sgau 
Karens,  that  denominational  comity  would  have  re- 
strained any  other  missionary  society  from  interference, 
save  the  S.  P.  G.  hio:h  church  of  Eno-land  associa- 
tion,  and  that  irresponsible  roving  community  of  chris- 
tian laborers,  mostly  Methodists  in  Southern  Asia, 
mostly  Baptists  in  Eastern  Asia,  which  go  by  impulse, 
live  by  feeling,  and  subsist  by  stating  their  wants  to 
men  and  praying  to  God  to  supply  them.  It  is  a  cause 
of  deep  regret  to  the  old  body  of  able  and  successful 
missionaries  in  Burmah  that  the  Propagation  Society  is 
rushing  ahead  so  in  the  line  of  education,  but  it  does 
seem  to  me  that  plainly  God  is  over-ruling  for  the  good 
of  his  cause.  The  grand  Bassein  education  work  is 
largely  the  effect  of  this  stimulant,  and  a  corresponding 
success  is  preparing  at  Rangoon.  Besides,  the  English- 
speaking  church  has  not,  for  years,  been  so  enterprising 
as  since  the  formation  of  the  new  ^lethodist  interest  and 
the  financial  and  spiritual  results  of  its  unanticipated 
enterprise. 

When  the  disruption  took  place  in  1843  between  the 
Established  and  Free  Churches  of  Scotland,  there  was 
great  anxiety  on  both  sides  that  there  should  be  no  in- 
terference with  each  other's  work  in  those  important 
Indian  centres  of  Calcutta,  Bombay,  and  jMadras.  Va- 
rious expedients  were  resorted  to,  that  henceforth  their 
spheres  of  labor  should  be  separated.  The  Free  Church 
wanted  to  buy  out  the  Establishment,  l)ut  the  old  society 
would  not  sell  a  square  foot  or  a  tile.  Petitions  were  for- 
warded to  send  all  new  missionaries  to  the  unevangel- 
ized  cities  and  provinces  of  Upper  India ;  but  the  an- 
swers were  positive  refusals.  The  results  have  proved 
both  were  wrong.  God  has  over-ruled  all,  to  the 
furtherance  of  christian  education  in  India.  Even 
under  the  immediate  strain  of  the  situation  the  enforced 
co-operation  of  christian  charity  was  a  wide-spread 
benediction,    and   the   humiliations    and  sacrifices    and 


272  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

various  victories  of  pious  principle  over  the  natural 
promptings  of  the  human  heart  won  the  attention,  admi- 
ration, and  assistance  of  evangelical  Christendom.  The 
American  mission  school  work  at  Beirut  has  been 
stirred  to  still  more  elEciency  by  the  British  Syrian 
schools  and  Bi1)le  missions.  It  does  seem  as  if  there 
are  greater  advantages  than  having  a  mission  all  to  one's 
dear  denominational  self.  We  have  mentioned  some  of 
them.  There  are  others ;  as  the  larger  and  needed 
missionary  social  life  than  would  be  otherwise  thought 
necessary,  the  enlargement  of  the  range  of  information 
and  sympathy,  the  healthful  discipline  to  the  mission  of 
an  ever-present  conscientious  diflerence  of  Bible  inter- 
pretation and  judgment,  and  the  greater  independence 
of  christian  character  likely  to  be  produced  among  the 
native  converts  by  their  inability,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  to  follow  the  missionaries  in  everything,  and 
the  necessity  in  part  of  forming  their  own  judgments 
upon  denominational  questions.  As  a  rule,  there  is  a 
marked  difference  in  the  native  christian  intelligence 
of  those  who  have  had  one  unvarying  missionary  exam- 
ple to  follow,  and  those,  who,  with  an  open  Bible,  have 
been  led  to  independent  investigations  in  the  presence 
of  evident  variations  amono^  the  religious  convictions  of 
the  missionaries.  It  has  also  seemed  to  me  that  the 
presence  of  more  than  one  mission  society  in  any  given 
populous  centre  has  greatly  increased  the  defensive 
power  of  the  church  against  unworthy  applications  for 
membership.  At  the  threshold  of  one  organization  a 
worldly  selfish  motive  may  shrewdly  be  concealed,  but 
any  play  by  the  candidate  between  two  christian  bodies 
for  higher  secular  inducements  is  quite  certain  to  un- 
mask itself,  if  there  be  among  all  the  missionaries  suffi- 
cient fraternity  of  spirit  and  painstaking  co-operation. 

The  Siamese  empire  is  made  up  of  several  divisions  ;  — 
of  the  original  locality  of  the  race,  and  then  of  their 
conquests  over  most  of  the  hill  regions  of  Lao,  part  of 
Camboja,  and  several  tributary  Malay  states  and  islands 
along  down  toward  the  vicinity  of  Singapore.  The 
country   is   very   mountainous,   the   valleys    profusely 


SIAMESE    AND    THEIR   RESOURCES.  273 

watered ;  and  the  three  great  rivers,  especially  the 
Menani,  are  compelled  to  rush  through  to  the  gulf  with 
the  most  rapid  current  1  have  ever  endeavored  to  stem 
with  a  small  boat,  except  just  below  the  falls  of  Niagara. 
Sometimes  with  several  rowers  we  could  not  make  a 
boat's-length  for  ten  minutes,  and  then  were  compelled  to 
cross  over  to  where  there  was  less  volume  and  swiftness 
of  the  waters  before  we  could  creep  up  stream.  The 
tropical  vegetation  is  very  dense  everywhere,  throwing 
its  profusion  of  drapery  over  into  the  water  of  all  the  river 
banks.  Existence  in  Siam  is  a  constant  struo^o^le  with 
exuberant  growths  of  grass  and  vines  and  Ijushes  and 
trees.  The  mountains  and  forests  are  infested  with 
elephants  and  other  wild  animals,  and  the  valleys  with 
mosquitos,  snakes,  toads,  and  lizards.  There  are  many 
beautiful  birds,  such  as  the  blue  mountain  pigeon,  the 
lire-l)acked  pheasant,  the  gray  partridge,  and  the 
peacock. 

There  are  some  excellent  teak  forests  in  the  upper 
country.  The  cocoa  and  areca  palms  are  extensively 
cultivated.  There  is  a  great  variety  of  fruits,  particu- 
larly in  the  vicinity  of  Bangkok ;  and  strangely  most 
of  them  are  exotic.  There  are  oranges,  and  mangos, 
and  mangustins,  and  durians,  and  lichis,  and  pineapples, 
and  guavas,  and  papia  ligs.  Sugar-cane  is  raised  in 
large  quantities.  ]Much  tobacco  is  cultivated ;  and  the 
natives  call  it  "  medicine."  Black  pepper  is  exported, 
also  cardamoms  and  rice.  Of  the  latter  cereal  the 
return  is  stated  as  forty-fold,  so  rich  are  the  alluvial 
plains.  Among  the  most  valualjle  vegetables  are  sweet 
potatoes.  The  climate  is  very  warm.  Even  in  Novem- 
ber I  found  it  difficult  to  move  around  without  excessive 
perspiration.  And,  while  perfectly  quiet  upon  the  river 
at  midday,  the  heat  was  almost  unendurable.  It  is 
much  more  comfortalDle  the  year  ar6und  at  Singapore, 
eight  hundred  miles  farther  south,  and  close  upon  the 
equator. 

The  Siamese  are  exceedingly  ceremonious,  consider- 
ing breaches  of  etiquette  as  crimes.  They  excel  all 
Asiatics  in  begging,  palavering  and.  falsehood.     Their 


274  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

women  are  not  secluded,  and  have  a  great  deal  of 
freedom.  They  are  not  generally  expected  to  live 
virtuous  lives  until  after  marriage.  The  penalty  of 
immorality  then  is  death.  As  in  China  brides  are  pur- 
chased. Among  the  people  there  is  a  mere  smattering 
of  education.  Slost  of  the  few  books  they  have  are  in 
the  religious  Pali  language.  Through  missionary  in- 
fluence, however,  the  beginning  of  a  better  literature 
has  been  made.  The  native  l)ooks  are  written  on  palm 
leaf  with  an  iron  stylus.  There  is  now  some  modern 
press-work  done  for  the  government,  as  well  as  for  the 
missions.  The  native  Siamese  are  very  indolent.  The 
gentry  ride  on  the  river,  smoke,  drink,  gamble,  and 
attend  cock-fighting.  The  laboring  class  work  only 
when  they  are  ''  dead  broke."  When  I  landed  at  Bang- 
kok, the  captain  and  I  tried  in  vain  to  hire  one  of  the 
many  Siamese  around  the  dock  to  carry  my  baggage ; 
but  they  all  happened  to  have  enough  to  buy  their  next 
meal,  and  what  did  they  care  for  the  morrow?  Finally 
we  had  to  seek  out  a  Chinaman.  There  were  plenty  of 
them  in  the  neighborhood,  only  they  were,  of  course, 
all  at  work  if  awake.  No  wonder  the  industrious 
Chinese  are  so  rapidly  overrunning  this  country.  Sia- 
mese are  the  most  indolent  and  the  vainest  people  of  the 
Orient.  There  is  a  strong  prejudice  against  white  teeth 
for  the  women,  and  they  are  blacked  at  an  early  age. 
With  few  exceptions  the  bodies  of  Siamese  are  burned, 
and  in  the  courts  of  the  temples.  Bangkok  is  a  city 
of  a  half-million  population,  situated  on  both  banks  of 
the  Menam,  which  is  its  Broadway.  All  along  the 
shores  are  floating  habitations,  built  on  bamboo  rafts. 
In  portions  of  the  city  there  is  government  eflfort  at 
improvement  in  buildings,  but  generally  the  native 
dwellings  are  little  better  than  huts  and  hovels.  It 
would  appear  that  in  no  city  of  the  world  is  there  so 
much  gambling.  Along  the  business  streets  every 
sixth  or  eighth  store  was  an  open  den.  The  palace 
ground  of  the  first  king  is  a  great  gaudy  enclosure,  with 
palaces  and  temples  for  the  various  departments  of 
business.     His  majesty  was  in  the  up-country,  but  the 


THE    BUDDHISM    OF    SI  AM.  275 

foreign  minister  detailed  an  officer  to  ^how  me  all  the 
sights,  especially  the  six  white  elephants,  who  are 
among  the  gods  of  Siam.  I  have  not  space  to  describe 
the  palace  and  temple  shoAvs,  nor  the  many  strange 
manners  and  customs  of  the  various  populations,  nor  the 
private  audience  given  me  by  the  second  king,  nor  the 
flurry  made  by  our  consul,  even  to  sending  a  complaint  to 
Washington,  because  I  had  dared  to  hobnob  with  royalty 
without  his  permission.  I  must  break  right  ofi*  with 
thus  much  of  rambling  introduction  to  my  delightful 
visit  to  Siam,  and  return  to  the  consideration  of  the 
religious  condition  of  the  people,  the  prospects  of  the 
two  missions  at  work  among  them,  and  to  a  few  other 
important  questions  of  principle  and  method  in  heathen 
evangelization  suggested  upon  the  ground. 

The  Buddhism  of  Siam  seems  thoroughly  wrought 
into  the  life  of  the  people.  Even  the  Chinese  portion 
of  the  population  appear  more  Buddhistic  than  in  their 
home-land,  accounted  for  in  part  l)y  their  general  mar- 
riage with  Siamese  women,  and  in  part  by  the  religious 
atmosphere  of  the  court  and  of  all  government  offices. 
Sir  John  Bo  wring,  the  English  plenipotentiary,  who 
made  a  special  stud}^  of  the  religion  of  Siam,  reported 
that  ''the  real  and  invincible  objection  to  Buddhism  is 
its  selfishness,  its  disregard  of  others,  its  deficiency  in 
all  the  promptings  of  sympath}^  and  benevolence."  "A 
bonze  seems  to  care  nothing  about  the  condition  of 
those  who  surround  him ;  he  makes  no  effort  for  their 
elevation  or  improvement.  He  scarcel}^  reproves  their 
sins,  or  encourages  their  virtues ;  he  is  self-satisfied 
with  his  own  superior  holiness,  and  would  not  move  his 
finger  to  remove  an}^  mass  of  human  misery."  These 
vagabond  Phra  number  about  one  in  forty  of  the  popu- 
lation, which  Avould  make  200,000  in  the  empire.  They 
live  by  begging  ;  or  rather  they  never  ask  for  anything, 
but  carry  around  their  rice-bowls  and  let  their  wants  be 
seen.  Their  law  does  not  allow  even  a  cough  as  a  so- 
liciting agency.  The}'  merely  circulate  their  informa- 
tion, and  live  in  confidence  that  the  Buddhist  gods  will 
supply  all  their  wants.     Several  hundred  of  these  yel- 


276  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

low-robed  holy  bonzes  receive  daily  their  alms  from  the 
king's  hand ;  but  it  would  be  a  lowering  of  their  piety 
to  the  level  of  the  common  laity  to  ask  him  directly  for 
a  gift,  so  they  only  file  every  morning  in  procession  be- 
fore him  with  open,  empty  boxes  in  their  extended 
hands,  while  their  eyes  are  averted,  and  their  lips  re- 
peating, "  O  Buddha,  I  take  refuge  in  thee  !  " 

It  is  very  evident  from  visits  to  multitudes  of  Bud- 
dhist temples,  that  the  fears  of  their  hells  are  made  much 
more  prominent  than  the  attractions  of  their  heavens. 
They  portray  in  carving  and  painting  a  few  poetical 
ideas  of  future  felicity  ;  but  the  fullest  play  is  given  to 
the  most  horrible  fancies  of  torment.  The  wicked  are 
roasted  on  spits,  are  flung  upon  iron  spikes,  are  made  to 
walk  on  molten  iron,  and  are  boiled  in  lead.  Through 
one  of  the  hells  a  salt  river  flows  to  tantalize  those  who 
are  tormented  with  thirst,  into  which  the  wretches  fling 
themselves,  only  to  be  fished  out  by  devils  with  l)urning 
hooks,  who  tear  out  their  entrails,  and  pour  melted  iron 
down  their  throats.  This  seems  the  chief  contribution 
of  "  The  Light  of  Asia  "  to  the  ground  of  moral  obli- 
sration  and  the  motives  of  correct  livinof.  Under  the 
influence  largely  of  the  late  king,  but  chiefl}^  as  the  re- 
sult of  imperceptible  impressions  made  through  the 
preaching  and  the  press  of  the  missions,  there  has  been 
somewhat  of  a  reform  in  Siamese  Buddhism.  It  has 
consisted  simply,  however,  of  the  repudiation  of  some 
modern  commentaries  on  the  old  Pali  1)ooks,  a  stopping 
of  a  few  of  the  more  glaringly  absurd  ol)servances,  and 
the  adoption  of  a  patronizing  attitude  toward  Christian- 
ity. For  the  last  twenty-five  years  the  usual  Siamese 
response  to  missionary  eflbrt  is:  —  ''Your  religion  is 
excellent  for  you,  and  ours  is  excellent  for  us.  All 
countries  do  not  produce  the  same  fruits  and  flowers, 
and  we  find  various  religions  suited  to  various  nations." 

To  appreciate  the  missionary  difficulty  in  laboring 
among  such  a  people,  let  me  give  the  recorded  answers 
in  a  number  of  conversations.  "Will  God  pardon  a 
great  sinner  or  a  murderer,  and  reward  him  like  a 
virtuous  man?     If  so,  he  is  not  just."     "  If  God  be  the 


TOO    SERIOUS    FOR   MERE    ESTHETICS.  277 

father  of  all,  why  did  he  not  reveal  his  will  to  eastern 
as  well  as  western  nations  ?  "  "  If  miracles  were  worked 
to  convert  your  forefathers,  why  do  you  not  work  mir- 
acles to  convert  us  ?  "  "  You  say  that  God  will  be  angry 
with  those  who  do  not  believe  you ;  ought  God  to  be 
angry  on  this  account  ?  —  is  He  a  good  God  if  He  is 
angry?"  "You  say  God  is  very  mighty  and  very 
benevolent,  and  that  He  makes  his  sun  shine  equally 
upon  the  just  and  the  unjust.  How,  then,  can  He  pun- 
ish sinners  everhistingly  in  hell  ?  "  "  How  are  we  to  know 
that  your  books  are  true?  You  tell  us  so,  and  Ave  tell 
you  our  books  are  true  ;  and  why  do  you  not  believe 
us,  if  you  expect  us  to  believe  a'ou?" 

La  Loubere,  one  of  the  leading  French  Catholic  writ- 
ers upon  the  principles  and  methods  of  missions,  insists 
that  a  chief  cause  of  missionary  failure  is  neo^lect  to 
recoo^nize  the  real  excellencies  of  the  relisfions  of  the 
people  whom  we  endeavor  to  convert.  It  certainly  is 
well  to  understand  with  what  weapons  the  enemy  is 
armed,  whom  we  propose  to  attack  in  Christ's  name. 
Many  missionaries  in  their  earlier  experiences  are  com- 
pletely^ discomfited  because  of  suddenly  unmasked  bat- 
teries of  excellent  principles  and  argument,  to  the 
perfect  surprise  of  these  christian  laborers.  Yet  La 
Loubere  is  wrong,  Avhen  he  advises  building  the  edifice 
of  christian  faith  and  life  upon  the  fragmentary  good  to 
be  found  in  the  heathen  religions.  The  chief  point  of 
inquiry  is  the  heart  of  their  evident  difiiculty,  the  grand 
essential  reasons  of  their  conspicuous  failure  as  a  light 
through  life  and  into  the  darkness  of  death.  The  phy- 
sician, who  is  called  to  attend  a  case  of  severe  sickness, 
is  not  indeed  to  neglect  to  observe  the  symptoms  of 
healthy  action  in  certain  functions,  but  his  chief  business 
is  to  diagnose  the  disease,  and  to  prescribe  the  remedy 
for  its  cure.  It  is  not  characteristic  of  modern  Christian 
Missions,  to  overlook  the  good  there  is  in  heathen  re- 
ligions, or  the  pleasing  evidences  from  time  to  time  that 
the  most  superstitious  and  degraded  idolaters  are  not  as 
bad  as  they  can  be,  yet  the  evangelization  of  the  Church 
recognizes  a  pressing  call.     The  religious  condition  of 


278  CHKISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

hundreds  of  millions  of  our  fellow-men  is  evidently  that 
of  fatal  disease.  The  special  business  of  evangelization 
is  to  diagnose  that  disease,  to  do  it  too  as  promptly  as 
possible,  and  with  equal  celerity  present  the  sovereign 
cure.  The  question  is  not  an  opportunity  for  aesthetics, 
but  of  life  and  death.  Let  poetical  temperaments  with 
plenty  of  leisure  this  side  of  the  grave,  glance  superfi- 
cially over  the  mythologies  and  waitings  of  Buddhism 
after  materials  for  rapturous  satisfaction,  but,  notwith- 
standing all.  Christian  Missions  realize  the  urgency. 
The  hand  has  felt  the  feverish  pulse.  The  face  has 
come  into  contact  with  the  hot  fetid  breath .  The  coated 
tongue,  the  sunken  eyes, —  all  have  told  of  Mai  disease. 
Anxiety  is  in  place, —  serious  thought, — prompt  and 
direct  treatment.  Such  should  be,  and,  thank  God, 
such  are  the  spirit  and  method  of  most  of  the  evangeliz- 
ing work  throughout  our  world  to-day. 

Another  mistake,  into  which  multitudes  besides  La 
Loubere  have  fallen,  is  to  attempt  to  deal  out  christian 
instruction  in  acceptable  quantities  to  the  heathen  mind 
and  heart.  Why,  asks  this  Frenchman,  should  we 
scandalize  the  Siamese  "  by  suddenly  opening  all  the 
mysteries  of  Christianity  ?  Teach  them  first  a  knoAvl- 
edge  of  God,  but  do  not  begin  by  requiring  an  assent  to 
the  doctrine  of  Incarnation.  The  mysteries  of  the  re- 
demption, of  imputed  righteousness,  of  the  atonement, 
will  be  invincible  stumbling-blocks,  if  presented  in  the 
shape  usually  employed  by  missionaries."  But  facts 
have  not  proved  that  these  were  invincible  stumbling- 
blocks.  At  hundreds  of  mission  stations  to-day,  the 
preaching  of  the  Cross  is  manifesting  itself  to  be  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation.  Thousands  are  believing 
the  Gospel  message,  whose  first  hearing  of  it  was  in  the 
language  of  Calvary.  When  Francis  Xavier  found  the 
Japanese  were  horrified  at  his  preaching  the  doctrine  of 
retribution,  he  gave  it  up  ;  and  thus  he  kept  on  modify- 
ing his  message  to  adapt  it  to  the  tastes  of  those  island- 
ers. But  God  did  not  give  abiding  prosperity  to  his 
mission.  It  failed  to  commend  itself,  as  the  missionary 
efforts  of  Protestant  christians  to-day  in  Japan  to  preach 


CHRISTIANITY   IN   ACCEPTABLE    QUANTITIES.         279 

the  pure  full  Gospel.  Persecution  practically  annihilated 
Xavier's  Jesuitism ;  it  could  not  do  so  with  the  Church 
of  Christ  set  up  during  the  last  score  of  years  in  the 
empire  of  the  rising  sun.  It  is  true>  there  is  a  progress 
of  doctrine  in  the  Sacred  Record,  and  there  were  suc- 
cessive stages  in  the  application  of  revealed  doctrine  to 
men.  But  it  is  also  true,  that  in  the  very  garden  where 
our  first  parents  fell  redemption  was  promised.  Blood 
sacrifices,  the  Messianic  psalms  and  clearly  outlining 
prophecies  kept  up  prominently  the  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement,  even  during  those  introductory  and  prepara- 
tory ages.  When  the  apostle  Paul  visited  Athens,  and 
his  spirit  was  thoroughly  aroused  at  the  idolatry  of  the 
city,  he  did  not  listen  to  any  suggestion  of  dealing  with 
heathen  religious  tastes  in  acceptable  quantities.  He 
began  his  address,  indeed,  with  great  prudence.  He 
complimented  his  audience  upon  their  very  religious 
disposition.  But  then  he  struck  promptly  and  fear- 
lessly at  their  idolatry,  and  proceeded  to  preach  the 
crucified  and  risen  Christ. 

Roman  Catholic  missions  in  Siam,  from  1662  down 
to  the  present  century  at  least,  had  their  purposes  well 
described  by  the  great  Portuguese  poet,  Camoens  ; — 

"  The  law  of  Christ  they  bring, 
New  customs  to  establish,  and  new  king." 

Great  efibrts  were  made  through  them  by  Louis 
XIV.  In  1780  all  Catholic  missionaries  were  banished 
from  Siam.  Since  1830,  however,  the  work  has  been 
undertaken  afresh,  modified  in  spirit  and  aim  by  the 
varied  circumstances,  and  to-day  it  is  a  strong  and 
aggressive  power  in  the  country.  It  is  probable  that, 
including  all  their  adherents  in  the  difierent  provinces, 
both  Siamese  and  Chinese,  there  is  a  Catholic  popu- 
lation of  ten  thousand. 

The  first  Protestant  missionary  to  Siam,  Dr.  Gutzlofi", 
was  of  too  sanguine  and  credulous  a  temperament.  He 
was  sure  the  fields  were  white,  already  to  harvest,  and 
believed  that  every  object  was  vocal  with  encourage- 
ment.     He  reported  of  the  first  king  —  "he  acknowl- 


280  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

edged  there  was  some  truth  in  Christianity."  Of  the 
second  king  he  wrote  — "  he  is  a  decided  friend  of  Chris- 
tianity," Of  one  of  the  leading  noblemen  —  "  he  greatly 
approved  of  christian  principles."  And  he  described 
the  priests  as  "  anxious  to  l)e  fully  instructed  in  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Gospel."  His  successor,  Mr.  Abeel,  was 
compelled  to  modify  these  gloAving  expectations.  Much 
wisdom  is  ever  needed  in  reporting  from  any  mission- 
field.  Especially  in  these  days,  when  missionary  litera- 
ture is  multiplying  on  all  sides,  and  voluminous  corre- 
spondence is  expected  from  every  station  to  fill  the 
columns  and  satisfy  the  reading  public,  great  care  and 
discrimination  are  required  to  avoid  both  optimism  and 
pessimism.  No  one's  work  should  be  either  written  up 
or  written  down.  Let  the  simple  facts  T)e  given,  and  if 
the  reports  philosophize  and  moralize  upon  them,  such 
moderation  is  desirable  as  shall  carry  the  reader's  judg- 
ment and  heart.  There  is  not  a  missionary  on  the  field 
but  has  facts,  many  of  them,  which  millions  of  readers 
would  gladly  devour  to-day,  l)ut  they  must  not  be  hur- 
ried under  the  debris  of  undue  elation,  or  undue  depres- 
sion, or  of  religious  commonplace  remarks. 

The  American  Baptist  mission  has  at  present  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  Chinese  converts  in  communion.  Its  head- 
quarters are  at  Bangkok,  and  it  has  five  out-stations. 
It  has  been  proposed  to  abandon  this  mission,  when 
its  venerable  missionary,  Avho  commenced  it  forty-six 
years  ago,  shall  have  passed  away.  It  is  question- 
able whether  any  mission  station,  occupied  thoughtfully 
and  prayerfully,  should  ever  be  abandoned.  Because,  in 
a  battle  extending  over  a  vast  range  of  country,  some 
one  battery  or  detachment  of  infantry  is  not  doing  any 
apparent  execution,  there  is  no  excuse  for  disobeying 
orders  and  moving  to  some  other  position.  There  are, 
indeed,  plain  indications,  occasionally,  that  it  is  the 
Great  Commander's  will  for  mission  forces  to  be  trans- 
ferred to  other  stations,  but  missions  should  be  very 
careful  against  interpreting  thus  when  the  providential 
occasion  is  only  for  the  development  of  waiting  graces 
and   the  ultimate  accomplishment  of   grander   results. 


ABANDONINTENT    OF    STATIONS.  281 

The  delay  of  years  for  a  single  convert,  and  even  of 
several  generations  for  marked  success  in  a  given  sta- 
tion, have  now  become  such  familiar  lessons,  that  seldom 
if  ever  should  the  thought  be  entertained  of  abandon- 
ing a  post  for  success  elsewhere.  Individuals  may  be 
moved,  but  a  vantage-ground  once  occupied  and  then 
surrendered  to  the  enemy  is  a  serious  matter. 

Reinforcements  need  to  be  sent  to  mission  stations  in 
time,  before  age  or  overwork  have  begun  to  disqualify 
the  laborers  in  the  field,  before  there  is  probability  of 
the  native  churches  being  left  shepherdless,  and  before 
the  opportunity  is  lost  not  only  of  acquiring  the  lan- 
guage before  responsibility,  but  also  of  deriving  benefit 
from  the  experience  and  counsel  and  example  of  the 
older  missionaries.  I  was  glad  to  see  that  even  the 
Chinese  christians  of  Bangkok  are  appreciating  the 
value  of  their  aged,  worn-out  brethren  and  sisters,  since 
the}'  have  I^uilt  a  house,  and  support  it  for  their  use. 
The  Presbyterians  are  keeping  their  Siamese  mission 
tolerably  well  supplied,  and  much  special  interest  is 
gathering  around  their  far-off  work  among  the  Laos  at 
Cheang-mai.  Though  in  all  the  country,  after  so  many 
years  of  so  much  work,  they  can  report  only  two  hun- 
dred and  six  communicants,  and  less  than  four  hundred 
scholars,  yet  neither  missionaries  nor  home  Board  dream 
of  abandoning  the  f?eld.  Rather  the  spirit  is  for  rein- 
forcement and  advance.  And  such,  I  am  persuaded,  it 
should  be,  even  though  another  generation  should  mark 
no  larger  numerical  results. 

At  both  Singapore  and  Penang  I  had  pleasant  breaks 
in  the  long  journey  around  from  Siam  to  Burmah.  The 
former  city  has  a  population  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand,  the  latter  forty  thousand.  Chinese  and 
Eurasians  are  very  numerous.  At  both  places  the 
most  active  missionaries  are  cf  the  Plymouth  Brother- 
hood. But  it  was  painful  to  see  so  much  piety  and 
consecration  and  toil  compromised  by  impracticable 
views  of  faith,  labor,  and  christian  association.  Eng- 
lish Independents,  Presbyterians,  and  Episcopalians  are 
also   making   some  movement  at  Singapore.     There  I 


282  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

became  especially  interested  in  the  mission  work  within 
the  colonial  prison,  containing  nearly  eight  hundred 
convicts.  Its  superintendent  is  a  christian,  a  most  im- 
portant qualification  for  such  a  position. 

I  shall  ever  retain,  even  as  my  family  from  a  fort- 
night before  me,  very  pleasant  memories  of  the  Island 
of  Penang.  It  is  a  charming  mountainous  retreat,  with 
a  large,  thriving  city,  and  great  variety  of  beautiful 
scenery.  From  an  excursion  into  the  Wellesley  Prov- 
ince opposite,  in  the  ]Malayan  Peninsula,  I  was  glad  to 
return  to  this  gem  of  all  the  islands  of  the  Bay  of  Ben- 
gal. But  more  beautiful  the  christian  lives  we  met 
here,  among  English,  Eurasians,  Chinese,  and  Malays. 
Christ's  spirit  drew  several  of  all  these  races  and  us 
Americans  together,  and  the  various  attentions  and  cor- 
dialities, following  to  the  very  deck  of  the  steamship, 
made  us  feel  as  if  we  were  leaving  home.  Especially 
delightful  was  a  social  gathering  in  our  honor  at  the 
elegant  residence  of  Mr.  Vansomeren,  whose  life  is 
proving  at  this  important  mission  outpost,  that  even  in 
the  legal  profession  christian  character  is  not  imprac- 
ticable. 


FARTHER   INDIA. 


283 


CHAPTER    XVII. 


BURMAH    AND    ASSAM. 


URMAH  has  about  the  same  latitude  and 
reversed  longitude  as  Mexico.  The  Brit- 
ish portion,  which,  since  1852,  includes 
the  whole  southern  half,  has  1,000  miles 
f  seaboard  upon  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  an  area 
V  ^BS.'J'^^  ■  ^^'  98,881  square  miles,  and  a  population 
^^^r  of  2,463,484.  Upper  Burmah,  the  inde- 
pendent remnant  of  the  formerly  extensive  empire,  ex- 
tends north  and  south  540  miles,  and  has  an  average 
breadth  of  420  miles.  The  population  is  estimated  as 
high  as  4,000,000,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  there  are 
more  than  3,000,000  ;  while  so  rapid  is  the  emigration 
southward,  and  so  numerous  and  powerful  are  other  les- 
sening influences,  that  within  ^ve  years,  if  not.  already, 
the  British  portion  of  Burmah  will  have  the  largest 
number  of  people.-  There  are  four  rivers  rising  in  the 
hilly  up-country  and  the  mountains  beyond,  all  having 
a  southerly  course.  The  chief  are  the  Irrawaddy  and  the 
Sahvin,  large  rivers  navigable  for  many  miles — the 
former  in  the  rainy  season  for  ocean  steamships  as  far 
as  Mandalay.  For  nearly  a  hundred  miles  from  the  sea 
the  country  is  a  Ioav,  damp  plain,  as  with  the  corres- 
ponding portions  of  Siam  and  Anam.  It  contains  a 
great  number  of  small  lakes.  The  chief  products  are 
rice,  maize,  millet,  wheat,  various  pulses,  tobacco,  cot- 
ton, indigo,  and  sugar-cane.  The  teak  forests  are  rich 
with  this  valuable  timber.  The  minerals  are  abundant 
in  the  up-country  and  await  the  inevitable  advance  of 
British  power  and  mining  industry.  The  connecting 
link   at   the  north,  between  Burmah,  or  farther  India, 


284  C5HRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

with  India  proper,  is  Assam.  This  territory  belongs  to 
Great  Britain,  and  includes  the  upper  valleys  of  the 
Brahmapotra  for  500  miles.  The  soil  is  very  fertile. 
Tea  is  the  most  important  article  of  commerce.  The 
population  is  given  at  2,412,480,  of  whom  one  and 
three-quarter  millions  are  Hindus,  a  quarter  million 
Mahometans,  about  two  thousand  Christians,  and  the 
remaining  one-third  million  are  hill-tribes  of  original 
Animistic  faiths. 

Both  British  and  Independent  Burmah  are  occupied 
by  a  variety  of  tribes  or  nationalities.  The  Burmans 
themselves  are  the  most  numerous,  they,  in  turn,  being 
divided  into  several  sub-nationalities.  These  people  are 
of  a  stout,  active  race  ;  their  complexion  is  brown ; 
their  hair  is  black,  coarse,  lank,  and  abundant.  The 
Shans  are  closely  related  to  the  Burmese.  They  occupy 
the  north-eastern  portion  of  the  country,  and  all  like- 
wise profess  Buddhism.  The  Karens  of  different  tribes, 
numbering  several  hundred  thousand,  are  scattered  all 
over  the  land.  In  the  British  territory  they  raise  most 
of  the  rice  crop.  They  have  their  own  language  and 
separate  dialects,  their  own  manners  and  customs,  and 
the  majority  of  them  have  never  adopted  the  Buddhistic 
religion,  clinging  to  the  ancient,  and  probably  their 
own,  original  Animism.  In  the  past  the  Burmans  ex- 
acted heavy  tribute  from  the  Karens,  and  virtualh^  held 
them  in  serfdom.  They  were  never  alloAved  place  in 
either  the  army  or  civil  service.  Immigration  has 
brought  many  Chinese,  Hindus,  and  Mahometans. 
Some  streets  in  Rangoon  quite  reminded  me  of  scenes 
in  China,  and  I  have  watched  hundreds  of  immigrants 
from  India  landed  upon  the  banks  of  the  Irrawaddy. 
In  mercantile  employ,  in  the  British  civil  and  mili- 
tary service,  and  in  the  missions  are  several  thousand 
English,  Europeans,  Americans  and  Eurasians. 

The  present  government  of  Independent  Burmah  is 
the  worst  in  the  world,  with  the  possiljle  exception  of 
Dahomey  and  Ashanti.  It  is  a  despotism  of  the  most 
stern,  cruel,  and  unmitigated  character.  All  the  prop- 
erty of  the  realm  and   all  the  lives  of  the  people  be- 


BUDDHIST    KING   AND   CHRISTIAN    RULER.  285 

long  to  the  savage  upon  the  throne.  Recently  in  ''  The 
Light  of  Asia "  he  massacred  all  his  relatives  to  the 
number  of  three  hundred,  all  who  could  by  the  most 
remote  possibility  interfere  with  his  brutal  sovereignty. 
These  atrocities  were  right  according  to  Buddhistic 
principles,  and  the  time-honored  customs  of  the  ruling 
Buddhistic  powers  of  Burmah.  Whether  a  man  is  on 
the  throne  or  in  the  most  humble  cottage  of  the  realm, 
he  has  simply  to  look  out  for  himself.  As  a  rule,  virtue 
and  honesty  are  the  best  policy  for  his  personal  ad- 
vancement ;  but,  if  vice  and  crime  serve  him  better,  he 
is  under  equal  ol^ligation  to  do  the  deed  which  brings 
the  greater  reward.  The  end  self  justilies  all  means. 
And  the  history  of  Burman  rule,  supported  by  the 
Buddhistic  priesthood,  is  one  long,  black  catalogue  of 
usurpations,  grinding  t3^rannies,  assassinations,  and  un- 
natural massacres.  There  is  no  protection  from  imme- 
diate execution  at  the  caprice  of  the  king.  In  ])oth  the 
wars  with  the  British,  a  number  of  native  commanders 
of  high  social  rank  were  at  once  beheaded  upon  return 
to  the  capital  after  defeat.  The  administrating  council 
of  state  is  called  the  lut-d'hau.  The  four  or  hve  mem- 
bers are  titled  woon-gyees.  A  deputy  Avoon-gyee  is 
called  a  woon-douk,  and  his  assistant  is  a  sara-dau-gyee. 
There  is  another  council,  whose  four  members  are  the 
king's  private  advisers,  denominated  atwen-woons. 
Then  there  are  the  nakandau,  or  spies  upon  the  lut- 
d'hau.  Yet  such  and  all  other  details  of  government 
are  of  l3ut  little  account,  Avhen  all  officials  are  the  slavish 
instruments  of  the  monarch's  will. 

British  Burmah  is  ruled  by  a  Chief  Commissioner,  re- 
siding at  Rangoon,  and  responsible  to  the  India  Vice- 
Royal  Government  at  Calcutta.  It  was  our  privilege  to 
meet  him  on  different  occasions,  and  we  gladly  recog- 
nized one  seeking  to  guide  his  important  official  life  by 
christian  principles.  Especially  will  the  name  of  this 
Scotchman,  Atchison,  be  associated  with  a  nol3le  and 
almost  unheard  of  stand  against  the  notorious  immorali- 
ties of  sub-officials.  To  all  he  published  a  notification 
that,  under  his  admmistration,  such  practices  would  be 


286  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

a  bar  to  advance  in  civil  appointment.  The  majority 
of  the  government  employees  denounced  this  as  unwar- 
ranted interference  with  their  private  lives,  and  the 
colonial  secular  press  ridiculed  him  unmercifully,  but  he 
was  immovable  in  the  stand  he  had  so  honorably  taken. 
Deputy  commissioners  are  located  at  other  centres  of 
districts,  as  Maulmain,  Bassein,  and  Prome.  At  the 
latter  city,  over  300  miles  up  the  Irrawaddy,  or  162  by 
railway  from  Rangoon,  we  were  favored  by  the  hospi- 
tality and  other  services  of  one  of  them,  son  of  the 
former  missionary.  Hough.  He  has  bince  received  pro- 
motion. We  remember,  also,  with  plea.^ure  and  grati- 
tude to  God  the  christian  spirit  and  practical  missionary 
sympathies  of  a  chief  of  customs  at  Bassein,  and  of  the 
superintendent  of  forests,  resident  at  Maulmain,  and  of 
several  others  high  in  the  British  civil  and  militaiy  ser- 
vice. But  yet  christian  life  and  evangelizing  work  do 
not  always,  by  any  means,  find  such  official  recognition 
and  encouragement.  Many  occupying  high  positions 
have  no  sympathy  with  missionaries,  and  take  every  oc- 
casion to  discourage  them  and  their  work.  Particularly 
under  their  countenance  some  most  unchristian  and 
harmful  practices  are  allowed.  Thus,  for  example,  the 
creation  of  a  market  for  opium  by  free  distribution  of 
enough  to  awaken  the  deadly  appetite. 

The  early  history  of  Burmah  was  fabulous  in  the 
extreme.  It  claims  before  the  advent  of  Gaudama 
or  Buddha  334,569  kings.  The  earliest  known  seat  of 
the  Burman  government  was  at  Pri,  or  Prome,  near 
the  present  boundary  line  between  the  native  and  Eng- 
lish territory.  In  company  with  Commissioner  Hough 
I  rode  out  from  this  modern  city  several  miles,  to  what 
are  probably  the  ruins  of  that  veneral)le  capital,  which 
may  have  been  contemporaneous  with  the  dawn  of  the 
christian  era.  For  a  long  period  their  Buddhistic 
mythology  tells  us  every  king  murdered  his  own  father. 
During  the  last  six  centuries  the  Burmans  have  changed 
the  location  of  their  capital  ten  times.  While  it  Avas 
at  Ava  they  were  first  visited  l)y  Europeans.  By  the 
commencement  of  the  present  century,  as  the  result  of 


JUSTIFIABLE    WARS.  287 

various  bloody  wars,  the  Burmese  power  had  become 
established  over  Pegu,  Martaban,  Tavoy,  Tenasserim, 
Arracan,  Cassay,  Cachar,  Assam  and  Jainteea.  This 
extension  of  territory  brought  them  into  contact  with 
the  power  of  Great  Britain  upon  their  north-western 
frontier.  Collision  was  sooner  or  later  inevitable,  for 
the  principles  of  this  priest-ridden  Buddhistic  monarchy, 
though  theoretically  in  part  golden  in  the  esteem  of 
many  modern  religious  philosophers  in  Christendom, 
were  practically  intolerable  to  that  Anglo-Saxon  enter- 
prise and  enlightenment,  which  had  been  received  prin- 
cipally from  the  open  Bil)le. 

Both  of  the  wars,  of  1824  and  1852,  against  Burmah 
were  unavoidable  on  the  part  of  the  English.  In  the 
presence  of  so  many  unjustiiiable  wars  in  which  Great 
Britain  has  been  engaged  during  the  present  century,  as 
the  opium  war  with  China,  that  of  the  Crimea  with 
Russia,  that  for  a  "  scientific  frontier"  with  Afghanistan, 
and  that  for  territorial  extension  with  the  Boers  of  South 
Africa,  it  is  pleasant  to  note  how  entirely  blameless  the 
English  government  was  in  both  of  these  sanguinary 
conflicts  with  the  Burman  empire.  It  seems  scarcely- 
credible,  but  it  was  a  fact  that  in  the  first  war  at  least 
the  Burmese  were  the  attacking  party,  and  expected  to 
deprive  England  of  her  India  possessions.  Dr.  Judson, 
who  was  at  the  time  in  Ava,  and  who  was  familiar  with 
the  prevailing  sentiments  of  the  court,  testified  that  the 
war  arose  from  jealousy  of  the  British  power,  and  from 
the  belief  that  English  soldiers  could  not  stand  before 
Burmese  courage  and  strategic  skill.  The  Burmese 
governor  of  Arracan  sent  an  order  to  the  Governor- 
General  of  India  to  deliver  up  the  whole  of  Bengal. 
In  two  years  the  Court  of  Ava  sued  for  peace,  paying 
as  the  price  five  million  dollars,  and  the  provinces  of 
Assam,  Cachar,  Jainteea.,  Munnipoor,  Arracan,  Yeh, 
Tavoy,  Mergui,  and  Tenasserim.  The  terms  should 
have  included  Pegu,  and  all  Lower  Burmah,  in  justice 
to  the  natives,  who  i-endered  the  British  assistance,  and 
to  guard  against  delusive  hopes  of  revenge  on  the  part 
of  the   barbarous  court.      On  account  of  this  and  the 


288  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

unwise  relinquishment  of  the  capture  of  the  capital,  the 
renewal  of  the  war  was  forced  upon  the  English  in  1852, 
when  the  present  temporary  limitations  were  given  to 
the  Burman  rule. 

It  was  interesting  to  visit  the  great  Shway  Dagon 
Pagoda  at  Rangoon,  around  which  and  upon  whose  lofty 
terraces  so  many  battles  of  these  wars  were  fought.  This 
is  an  edifice  of  great  antiquity,  is  the  pride  of  Burmah, 
and  will  probably  for  many  centuries  yet  lift  its  beau- 
tiful gold-covered  spire  toward  the  sky.  The  height 
of  the  ''h-tee,"  or  crowning  umbrella  above  the  ter- 
race, is  three  hundred  and  thirty-six  feet.  The  "  h-tee  " 
is  placed  on  every  sacred  building  of  inverted  cone-like 
form,  and  its  raising  and  consecration  always  occasion  a 
scene  of  special  religious  festivity.  At  these  and  at 
other  times  the  Burmese  exhibit  a  great  deal  of  super- 
stition, but  without  devoutness.  AA^ith  priests  and  tem- 
ples everywhere,  there  is  a  prevailing  indifference  to 
religion.  The  temples  are  not  equal  to  those  of  Siam 
in  extent  and  display.  The  idols  are  much  less  numer- 
ous and  artistic.  The  women  are  accustomed  to  a 
great  deal  of  drudgery,  yet  pay  considerable  attention 
to  personal  adornment.  In  this  they  are  more  success- 
ful Avith  dress  and  hair,  than  with  their  ears  which  they 
disfigure,  and  their  hands  which  they  powder  with 
various  colors.  Their  custom  of  chewing  the  betel  nut 
gives  to  their  teeth,  mouth  and  lips  a  very  repulsive 
appearance.  It  is  almost  as  customar}^  for  the  women 
to  smoke  as  for  the  men.  The  Karens  are  a  more  sim- 
ple, peaceful  and  tractable  race.  They  have  more  vir- 
tues and  fewer  vices  than  the  Burmese  or  than  the 
Shaas. 

The  most  important  event  which  has  occurred  in  the 
history  of  Burmah,  more  eventful  than  the  repeated 
success  of  British  arms,  was  the  opening  of  the  American 
Baptist  mission  at  Rangoon  in  1813.  Some  previous 
efforts  had  been  made  there  by  English  representatives 
of  the  same  religious  denomination.  But  they  were  so 
transient  and  unwisely  directed,  that  to  these  American 
fugitives  from  Madras  belong  the  honor  of  being  the 


HOME    DEBT    OF   OBLIGATION.  289 

pioneer  missioniiries  to  Burmah.  They  were  also  the 
occasion  of  the  great  modern  missionary  revival  in  their 
native  land.  Their  denomination  in  America  had  heard 
of  the  names  of  Carey,  Marshman  and  Ward  in  India, 
and  of  Fuller,  Ryland  and  Sutclifie  in  England,  but 
their  evangelizing  energies  were  largely  dormant,  until 
Judson  and  his  companion  awoke  them  to  the  work  of 
missions.  True,  it  was  seven  long  years  before  these 
pioneer  missionaries  in  Burmah  welcomed  their  first 
convert,  but  before  that  they  had  done  more  for  the 
christian  churches  they  left  behind  them  than  any  score 
of  the  most  able  and  t'aithful  ministers.  They  had  kin- 
dled a  new  flame  of  consecration,  had  formed  new 
bonds  of  union,  and  had  largely  increased  the  circum- 
ference of  sympathy  and  prayer.  Indeed  all  foreign 
missions  have  paid  a  thousand-fold  in  the  good  they 
have  done  alone  to  home  Christianity.  It  is  fearful  to 
contemplate  what  would  undoubtedly  be  our  present 
religious  condition,  had  no  missionaries  during  the 
present  century  gone  forth  to  heathen  and  non-christian 
lands  from  Protestant  England,  America  and  Europe. 
There  would  not  be  half  as  much  spiritual  power  for 
the  evangelizing  work  among  our  own  populations. 
The  churches  would  not  be  nearly  as  numerous,  nor  the 
Sunday  schools  so  flourishing,  nor  the  various  home 
missions  so  enterprising  and  successful.  Yes,  we  owe 
a  debt  of  unspeakable  gratitude  to  foreign  missions  for 
their  benediction  upon  us  at  home.  What  stimulating 
examples  they  have  given  us  of  self-sacrificing  devotion  ! 
What  holy  ambitions  they  have  kindled  in  millions  of 
hearts  to  be  more  Christ-minded  toward  a  lost  and 
ruined  world !  What  numerous  occasions  they  have 
been  for  blessed  christian  fellowship  !  Over  against 
simply  what  we  have  and  are  enjoying  in  the  Lord,  the 
sum  total  expense  of  foreign  missions,  during  the  pres- 
ent century,  weighs  as  but  the  dust  in  the  balance. 

To  give  the  remarkable  spirit  of  the  man  whom  God 
had  chosen  to  break  ground  for  missions  in  a  new 
heathen  field,  and  to  arouse  the  dormant  religious  life 
of  millions  in  America,  I  will  transcribe  a  part  of  a  let- 


290  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ter  he  wrote  from  Rangoon  in  1816.  "If  any  ask  what 
success  I  meet  with  among  the  natives,  tell  them  to  look 
at  Tahiti,  where  the  missionaries  labored  nearly  twenty 
years,  and,  not  meeting  with  the  slightest  success,  be- 
gan to  be  neglected  by  all  the  christian  world,  and  the 
very  name  of  Tahiti  began  to  be  a  shame  to  the  cause  of 
missions  ;  and  now  the  blessing  begins  to  come.  Tell 
them  to  look  at  Bengal  also,  where  Dr.  Thomas  had 
been  laboring  seventeen  years  (that  is  from  1783  to 
1800),  before  the  first  convert,  Krishna,  was  baptized. 
When  a  few  converts  are  once  made,  things  move  on ; 
but  it  requires  a  much  longer  time  than  I  have  been 
here,  to  make  a  first  impression  on  a  heathen  people. 
If  they  ask  again  :  What  prospect  of  ultimate  success  is 
there  ?  —  tell  them  :  As  much  as  there  is  in  an  Almighty 
and  faithful  God,  who  will  perform  his  promises  and  no 
more.  If  this  does  not  satisfy  them,  beg  them  to  let 
me  stay  and  try  it,  and  to  let  you  come,  and  to  give  us 
our  BREAD  ;  or,  if  they  are  unwilling  to  risk  their  bread 
on  such  a  forlorn  hope,  as  has  nothing  but  the  Word  of 
God  to  sustain  it,  beg  of  them,  at  least,  not  to  prevent 
others  from  giving  us  bread ;  and,  if  we  live  some 
twenty  or  thirty  years,  they  may  hear  from  us  again." 

Mrs.  Ann  H.  Judson  possessed  the  same  heroic  self- 
sacrificing  spirit  as  her  husband.  Her  missionary  char- 
acter also  was  a  rich  legacy  to  the  Church  Universal. 
It  was  not  meant  of  God  that  any  denominational  limits 
should  set  bounds  to  consecration  so  thorough,  service 
so  loyal  and  fearless,  views  of  Avorld  evangelization  so 
intelligent  and  practical,  and  to  experience  so  peculiarly 
thrilling  and  full  of  inspiration.  Those,  who  have  read 
her  memoirs,  remember  well  those  months  at  Rangoon 
of  dejection  and  distress  while  her  husl)and  was  sup- 
posed to  have  been  lost  at  sea  ;  those  nearly  two  years 
of  war  and  horrid  cruelties,  when  as  an  angel  she  min- 
istered to  Dr.  Jiidson  and  his  companions  in  prison,  the 
only  foreign  lady  in  that  brutal  heathen  capital,  cheering 
the  captives  in  their  despondencies,  feeding  them  when 
starving,  alleviating  their  pains,  supplicating  oflScials  in 
their  behalf,  and  supporting  them  down  into  the  waters 


THE    JUDSONS    AT    OUNG-PEN-LA.  291 

of  death.  It  will  be  rememl)ered  with  what  unfaltering 
heroism  she  followed  her  hus])and  to  Oung-pen-la,  how 
there  she  contended  successfully  against  the  most  fear- 
ful odds,  how  distressing  her  experience  on  return  to 
Ava,  and  how  triumphantly  at  last  she  surmounted  all 
her  aftiictions.  We  shudder  at  the  recollections  of  that 
death-prison,  of  its  branded  criminal  keepers,  and  of 
its  murderer  chief  who  would  affectionately  caress  his 
prisoners  while  they  Avere  suffering  under  his  cruel  tor- 
turings.  We  remember  her  hiding  in  a  wretched  pillow 
the  manuscript  translation  of  the  Xew  Testament,  and 
thus  preserving  Heaven's  bread  of  life  for  millions  of 
souls.  AVe  remember  the  mince-pie  she  made  from 
buffalo  meat  and  plantains,  and  how  this  tender  touch 
of  love  almost  broke  the  heart  of  the  chained  and  im- 
prisoned hero.  We  remember  her  first-]:)orn  cradled 
for  its  last  sleep  in  the  billows  of  the  deep  ;  her  second, 
resting  in  the  jungle  graveyard  at  Rangoon ;  and  her 
third,  twenty  days  old  in  her  mother's  arms,  at  the 
barred  door  of  the  death-prison  for  the  crawling  chained 
father's  first  sight,  which  prompted  those  verses, — 

"Go,  darlino;  Infant,  go; 

Thine  hoar  has  passed  away; 
The  jailer's  harsh,  discordant  voice 
Forbids  thy  longer  stay. 

"  God  grant  that  we  may  meet 
In  happier  times  than  this. 
And  with  thine  angel  mother  dear, 
Enjoy  domestic  bliss." 

It  was  a  privilege  to  visit  her  grave  at  Amherst,  and 
there  to  contemplate  a  character  of  such  christian  con- 
secration, such  pious  heroism,  and  unfaltering  faith  in 
God.  With  her  record  every  christian  should  be  famil- 
iar. To  all  readers  it  cannot  fail  to  prove  a  blessed 
benediction. 

The  mission  work  in  Burmah,  thus  so  gloriously  inau- 
gurated, Avas  sustained  and  prospered,  and  from  time  to 
time  strengthened  by  missionary  reinforcements.  No 
foreign  field  has  been  better  furnished  Avith  christian 
Avorking  material.     Of  those  AA^ho  have  gone  to  their 


292  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

rest  and  whose  works  do  follow  them,  many  outside  the 
denomination  which  supports  this  mission  recall  the 
honored  names  of  Wade,  Boardman,  Kincaid,  Mason, 
Binney,  Vinton,  Has  well,  Abbott,  Thomas  and  others 
equally  deserving  of  mention.  Some  have  labored  ex- 
clusively for  the  Burmese,  others  for  the  Karens,  and 
still  others  for  other  tribes.  Among  these  various  peo- 
ple, chiefly  the  Karens,  there  are  at  present  not  far 
from  twenty-two  thousand  members  of  christian  churches, 
scattered  throughout  the  provinces  of  British  Burmah. 
The  present  generation  of  missionaries  is  not  behind  the 
fathers  and  mothers,  who  have  fallen  asleep.  They  are 
as  intelligent,  as  consecrated,  and  though  the  storms  of 
persecution  which  l)urst  upon  those  of  former  days  have 
entirely  cleared,  other  and  equally  stern  trials  have  suc- 
ceeded, and  the  same  heroism  and  faith  and  patient 
waitino^  are  beino^  illustrated.  Of  this  we  were  im- 
pressed  by  the  Avork  of  Eev.  D.  W.  Smith  with  his  Ka- 
ren Theological  Seminary  at  Rangoon,  of  Rev.  C.  H. 
Carpenter  Avith  his  grandly  successful  educational  estab- 
lishment at  Bassein  ;  by  that  of  Mrs.  Thomas  at  Hen- 
thada,  of  Miss  Sheldon  at  Maulmain,  and  by  the  work 
of  others  equally  difficult,  important  and  successful. 

Descending  the  Irrawaddy,  we  stopped  one  evening  at 
Ma-oo-ben  to  see  how  the  new  missionary  Bushell  and  his 
wife,  whose  acquaintance  we  had  formed  at  Rangoon, 
were  beginning  their  work  among  the  Pwo  Karens  of 
that  district.  At  once  we  seemed  to  be  taken  back 
more  than  a  half  century  to  experiences  of  the  utmost 
self-denial  and  discomfort.  Could  we  have  remained 
through  the  night,  a  Buddhist  idol-house  would  have 
l)een  our  only  shelter.  The  missionary  had  not  yet 
completed  his  dwelling,  though  with  two  or  three  men 
he  had  been  driving  work  for  almost  a  month.  But 
$150  were  to  be  expended,  a  sum  not  sufficient  to  en- 
courage luxurious  tastes.  His  temporary  quarters  in  an 
adjoining  native  house  were  dilapidated  in  the  extreme. 
So  numerous  were  the  mosquitoes,  and  their  sting  so  ex- 
traordinarily painful  and  vexatious,  that  we  could  not 
converse   in   the   open  air  without  building   a  bonfire 


STATION    AND    OUTSIDE    WORK.  293 

and  sitting  close  to  it.     For  the  same  reason  in  the  little 
boat  we  were  compelled  to  fill  the  t,ny  cabin  w>th  an  al- 
most  suffocating  cloud  of  smoke.      The    surroundmg 
country  is  low  dead-level,  and  destitute  ot  anytoac- 
tions  save  to  the  rice-cultivatmg  natives,  and  to  he  m^- 
sionary  who  loves  their  souls.     Not  quite  so  bad,  in- 
deed, as  the  death-prison  of  Ava,  and  the  cruel  walls  of 
Oun-i-pen-la;   but  then  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Judson  endured 
there  Ihat  unexpectedly  came  upon  them,  !^;^e  licie 
the  missionary  and  his  wife  prospected  the  held  befo  e 
entering  upon  it.     And  when,  on  a  subsequent  occasion, 
we  saw  them  with  their  little  child,  wavmg  to  us  on  the 
river  from  their  bamboo  Ijird's-nest  up  in  the  air,  moie 
dismally  located  than  it  would  be  possible  in  America, 
we  realized  that  the  self-denying  and  heroic  age  ol  mis- 
sions had  not  passed,  and  that  the  close  of  the  present 
century,  as   well  as  its  opening,  has  opportunity  lor 

""  And'that  the  romance  of  missions  still  can  be  found, 
if  search  is  made  away  from  the  Europeamzed  commer- 
cial ports  out  among  the  country  villages,  where  the 
masses  of  the   heathen   populations   lije    we   realized 
when  visiting  with  the  missionaries  \  niton  and  Cole- 
man of  the   Rangoon    Sgau   Karen    district.     A    large 
portion  of  their  time  is  spent  in  the  jungles,  travel  ing 
by  boat  or  elephant,  living  with  the  natives,  mingling 
with  them  in  their  daily  humble  and  rude  experiences,  a 
day  in  this  village  and  the  following  in  another,  thus, 
with  every  season,  making  the  circuit  of  all_  their  out- 
stations.     We  had  a  taste  of  it  in  the  Bassem  district, 
spending  a  few  days  with  boats  and  elephants  among 
the  jun|le  villages.     It  is  evident  that  the  tendency  is, 
as  missions  advSnce,  to  do  too  little  of  this  outlying  na- 
tive visitation  work.     Not  that  the  missionaries  become 
indolent,  or  lose  in  any  measure  the  desire  to  evangelize 
the  people  ;  but,  when  comfortable  homes  are  built,  and 
central  schools  are  established,  it  is  so  easy  to  see  that 
the  more  pressing  work  is  there  than  elsewhere.     Un- 
doubtedly the  itinerating  pastoral  .and  preaching  duties 
of  a  missionary  must  become  modihed  by  the  demands 


294  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

of  the  station  schools,  by  the  translation  and  other  liter- 
ary work  in  the  native  language,  and  by  his  own  family 
cares,  which,  under  God,  are  his  quite  as  much  as  if  he 
had  remained  in  his  home  land.  But,  then,  rarely 
should  such  moditication  be  allowed  to  become  a  substi- 
tute for  the  rule.  Rarely  should  the  missionary,  under 
ordinary  circumstances,  limit  his  own  personal  activities 
to  his  own  compound,  while  there  are  hundreds  of  sur- 
rounding accessible  centres  of  population  unvisited. 
Schools'need  to  be  taught,  but  very  often  it  has  seemed 
to  me  that  native  instruction  would  answer  quite  as 
w^ell,  while  no  native  evangelist  could  go  off  and  do 
what  the  missionary  could  during  the  week  with  that 
neighboring  cluster  of  villages.  Books  must  l^e  made, 
but  sometimes  that  is  overdone,  and  time  consumed  that 
might  l)e  more  profitably  spent  in  itinerating  and 
preaching.  We  do  not  forget  that  everywhere  in  these 
vast  heathen  lands  the  pressing  demand  is  for  a  thor- 
oughly-equipped native  ministry.  As  then  the  mate- 
rial is  furnished,  the  missionary's  time  will  necessarily 
be  more  and  more  occupied  in  instructing  and  in  pro- 
viding materials.  And,  as  the  work  groAvs  upon  the 
hands  of  the  mission  station,  it  Avill  be  wise  to  assign 
missionaries  specially  to  the  departments  of  instruction 
and  translation ;  but,  even  then,  it  is  questionable 
whether  the  laborer  should  be  deprived  of  frequent 
itinerating  contact  with  the  ])ody  of  the  native  chris- 
tians, and  the  masses  of  the  heathen  population.  It  is 
experience  which  the  teacher  needs  to  keep  him  qualified 
to  render  the  most  practical  instruction,  and  often  he 
can  teach  his  pupils  far  more  in  the  jungle  village  than 
in  the  class-room.  And  it  is  likewise  an  experience 
which  the  book-maker  requires  to  keep  him  in  his 
writing  intelligible  to  the  common  people.  The  minister 
at  home,  who  does  not  do  a  reasonable  amount  of  pastor- 
al work,  comes  in  time  to  preach  over  the  heads  of  his 
congregation.  His  language  is  bookish.  He  spins  out 
beautiful  theories,  and  elaborates  profound  ideas  which 
are  of  no  practical  value.  Likewise  the  missionary 
cannot  safely  forego,  under  whatever  pressure  of  other 


KABENS    AND    THEIR   TRADITION.  295 

duties,  his  pastoral  work  among  his  flock.  Woukl  he 
keep  in  trim  for  the  most  effective  service,  he  must 
frequently  leave  his  class-room  and  accumulating  piles 
of  manuscript,  and  go  out  into  the  homes  of  the  people, 
preaching  in  their  chapels  and  streets,  and  preserve  to 
himself  for  his  station-work  a  living  practical  knowl- 
edge of  the  masses  for  whom  he  is  laboring.  Such 
will  find  that  the  novelty  of  mission  life  is  not  yet  all 
gone ;  that  there  are  worlds  of  more  than  romantic  in- 
terest awaiting  discovery  ;  and  that  carrying  the  Gospel 
to  the  heathen  is  far  yet  from  dropping  back  into  dull 
tread-mill  drudgery. 

The  Karens  are  a  peculiarly  interesting  people  for 
mission  labor.  Though  given  to  drunkenness  and  of 
filthy  habits,  they  are  more  moral  and  more  teachable 
than  Burmans  and  Shans.  They  have  some  ideas  of  a 
Great  Being  who  governs  all  things,  and  a  tradition 
that  they  should  eventually  become  acquainted  with 
Him,  through  white-faced  foreigners  from  the  west. 
They  are  generally  very  averse  to  idolatry,  with  which 
probably  the  oppression  of  their  Buddhistic  Burman 
masters  has  had  much  to  do.  Yet  it  would  be  a  great 
mistake  to  suppose  that  the  large  measure  of  evangeli- 
zation among  them  has  not  required  much  hard  and 
often  discouraging  missionary  Avork,  They  are  bound 
by  many  absurd  traditions  and  degrading  superstitions. 
Their  worship  of  spirits  is  a  powerful  hold  to  keep  them 
from  embracing  the  Gospel.  The  first  convert  was  a 
redeemed  bond-servant  in  Rangoon,  whose  debt  was 
paid  by  a  Burman  christian  at  the  time  of  the  first  Eng- 
lish war ;  and  this  Ko  Thah-byu  became  a  real  apostle 
among  his  Karen  fellow-countrymen,  and  after  him 
they  have  named  their  celebrated  school  in  Bassein.  ^  It 
is  worth  a  voyage  around  the  world  to  visit  the  eight 
thousand  Sgau  Karen  christians  of  the  Bassein  district, 
and  to  see  what  marvels  they  have  accomplished  out  of 
their  extreme  poverty  for  the  sake  of  the  thorough  edu- 
cation of  their  children.  We  have  passed  through  many 
of  their  villages,  looked  into  many  hundreds  oF  their 
homes,  and,  with  but  scarcely  a  half-dozen  exceptions, 


296  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

all  the  household  furniture  was  not  worth  over  ten  dol- 
lars in  the  bazaar.  Yet  they  have  spent  thirty  thousand 
dollars  upon  their  high  school  buildings,  and  in  addi- 
tion have  invested  in  America  fifteen  thousand  dollars 
as  their  beginning  of  an  endowment  fund.  Such  meas- 
ure of  giving,  yea,  one-tenth  of  it  in  America  and  Pro- 
testant Europe,  would  banish  for  ever  the  missionaries' 
terrible  fear  of  retrenchment. 

It  was  a  gratification  to  see  the  Baptist  college  building 
at  Rangoon,  and  the  English  Protestant  Episcopal — 
S.  P.  G. —  boys'  school  across  the  w^ay,  as  also  at  Maul- 
main  the  girls'  seminary,  all  permanent  beautiful  struct- 
ures for  christian  educational  purposes  ;  but,  then,  the 
expense  was  borne  by  the  home  churches.  It  was 
American  and  British  gold.  But  here  at  Bassein  the 
Karens  did  it  all  themselves,  after  that  the  missionary 
society  had  purchased  the  ground  ;  and  to  look  upon  the 
grand  results  of  their  independent  enterprise  under  the 
embarrassment  of  such  abject  poverty  gives  the  far 
greater  pleasure.  How  could  they  do  it?  There  is  no 
human  explanation.  The  giving  has  been  out  of  range 
of  all  natural  promptings.  But  God's  spirit  has 
breathed  upon  those  converts  from  the  low^est  heathen- 
ism, and  through  them  He  has  taught  a  rich  lesson  upon 
benevolence  to  the  Universal  Church.  We  will  stop 
our  boat  at  this  village.  The  elephants  are  waiting  for 
us  a  little  beyond.  The  houses  appear  unusually  dilapi- 
dated, and  we  express  surprise  at  the  squalor  and 
wretchedness  around,  although  for  nearly  a  year  we  had 
become  accustomed  to  the  unsightliness  of  Asiatic 
dwellings.  The  explanation  is  given,  that  soon  the 
village  is  to  be  abandoned,  on  account  of  the  multipli- 
cation of  rats  in  the  surrounding  jungle  for  the  previous 
seven  years.  Last  year  half  of  the  rice,  their  only  crop, 
was  destroyed ;  and  this  year  the  inhabitants  will  reap 
only  a  third  harvest.  As  a  consequence,  they  have 
been  brought  to  extreme  destitution,  and  though  for- 
merly they  had  endeavored  to  exterminate  the  rats  by 
poison,  now  they  find  it  necessary  to  trap  them  or  spear 
them  for  food  to  keep  from  starvation.     We  seek  out 


A   LESSON    ON    GIVING.  297 

the  minister  and  deacon,  and  a  little  company  gathers 
around  the  missionary  in  the  chapel.  Sorrow  and  sym- 
pathy and  prayer  are  mingled,  and  then  we  separate. 
But  the  deacon  draws  from  his  tattered  garment  a  hand- 
ful of  silver, —  ten  rupees, —  live  dollars.  '^  This  is  our 
contribution  for  foreio-n  missions  ranono^  the  wild  tribes 
in  the  mountains."  The  tears  gather  in  the  eyes  of  both 
the  missionary  and  his  guests.  Money  from  starving- 
people  to  send  the  Gospel  to  heathens  seven  hundred 
miles  away  !  ''  No,  wx  cannot  take  it.  God  does  not 
ask  this  now  at  your  hands."  The  missionary  entreated 
them  to  place  this  contribution,  at  least  temporarily,  in 
their  church  poor  fund,  to  save  some  of  their  number  it 
might  be  from  death  in  a  few  days.  Impossible,  said 
the  minister  ;  and  the  deacon  added  these  Avords,  which 
I  wish  all  home  christians  could  have  heard,  as  he  spoke 
them  while  thrusting  the  silver  coins  into  Mr.  Carpen- 
ter's hands, —  "We  can  live  on  rats,  l)ut  the  Ka-Khyens 
cannot  live  Avithout  the  Gospel ! " 

The  work  among  the  Burmese  has  never  yet  in  its 
results  seemed  commensurate  with  the  missionary  labor 
bestowed  upon  them.  No  other  live  millions  of  popu- 
lation in  all  heathendom  have  been  blessed  Avith  so 
many  able  christian  teachers.  Dr.  Judson  gave  them  a 
most  admirable  translation  of  the  Bil^le,  and  the}^  have 
had  it  for  over  half  a  century.  To-day  Dr.  Stevens  of 
Kangoon,  Rev.  A.  T.  Eose  assigned  to  the  important  en- 
deavor to  open  a  Mandalay  mission,  and  others  at  Bas- 
sein,  at  Prome,  at  Maulmain,  and  at  other  stations,  are 
faithfully  folloAving  up  the  evangelistic  labors  among  the 
Burmans,  in  Avhich  so  many  have  engaged  before  them. 
But  the  AA^ork  drags.  The  numbers  in  the  churches 
very  slowly  increase.  Why  is  it?  Principally,  it 
seems  to  me,  because  it  is  not  God's  way  to  begin  Avith 
any  country  christianizing  the  upper  classes.  Dr.  Jud- 
son made  a  mistake  not  to  commence  Avith  the  Karens. 
Especially  as  he  had  come  directly  from  India,  Avith  a 
knoAvledge  of  its  caste  system,  and  of  the  fact  that  thus 
far  almost  all  success  had  been  among  the  loAvest 
classes,  he  should  at  once  have  inquired  in  Burmah  for  the 


298  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

corresponding  ranks  of  society.  Had  he  not  left  it  for 
mere  chance  nine  years  afterwards,  that  christian  sym- 
pathy was  excited  for  the  Karens,  and  had  he  inter- 
ested himself  at  once  in  this  serf  population,  passing  by 
for  the  time  being  the  proud,  ruling  Burmese  race,  he 
might  have  escaped  Ava  and  Oung-pen-la,  and  that 
early  grave  at  Amherst  might  not  have  been.  And 
then  might  have  been  anticipated  by  a  whole  generation 
what  we  are  witnessins^  to-dav, —  the  arrestino^  and  im- 
pressing  of  the  Burman  mind  by  Karen  Christianity  in  a 
more  emphatic  and  practical  way  than  has  been  possible 
throuo^h  direct  missionarv  effort.  Burman  evano^eliza- 
tion  has  been  waiting,  according  to  the  Divine  rule  laid 
down  in  the  first  chapter  of  first  Corinthians,  for  the 
leadersliip  of  Karen  evangelization.  And  now  at  last 
the  proud  race  is  beginning  to  inquire  generally  and 
seriously,  — What  is  this  power,  that  is  lifting  those, 
who  were  so  far  below  us,  now  so  far  above  ?  Time 
and  Providence  have  thus  readjusted  the  order  of  mis- 
sion work ,  in  this  land,  and  the  immediate  future  is 
therefore  vastly  more  hopeful. 

It  is  an  interesting  question  whether  these  races 
should  be  educated  together.  There  is  a  mutual  repul- 
sion. The  wrongs  inflicted  and  suffered  for  centuries 
have  created  feelings  not  easily  suppressed.  Some  seri- 
ous difiSculties  have  arisen  in  the  endeavor  to  associate 
them  in  the  same  schools.  But  looking  into  the  future, 
it  would  seem  to  be  the  wisest  policy  to  continue  the 
efibrt.  It  is  to  the  interest  of  all  the  various  popula- 
tions in  Burmah,  Avhose  ethnological  differences  after  all 
are  vastly  less  than  between  the  whites  and  ])lacks  in 
America,  that  their  social  distinctions  give  way  to  the 
advance  of  British  protection  and  of  christian  evangeli- 
zation and  instruction. 

There  are  a  number  of  natives  in  Burmah,  who  have 
been  educated  in  America.  The  missionaries,  who  were 
responsible  for  this  denationalizing  of  promising  youths, 
doubtless  acted  conscientiously  and  according  to  their 
best  judgment.  But  it  is  nevertheless  very  evident  that 
they  were  mistaken.     I  have  seen  many  illustrations  of 


INDUSTRIAL    DEPARTMENTS    IN    SCHOOLS.  299 

this  in  many  lands,  and  with  very  rare  exceptions  it  has 
proved  a  disastrous  experiment.  When  brought  to 
responsible  life,  and  thrown  upon  their  own  resources, 
among  their  own  people,  they  are  seldom  contented, 
practical  and  thoroughly  useful.  They  have  been 
spoiled  by  the  curious  attentions  they  have  received  in 
christian  lands.  They  are  disappointed  in  not  finding 
at  home  the  same  social  recognition  among  the  foreign 
community,  and  they  realize  that  they  are  above  their 
own  people.  Of  one  of  these  America  educated  Bur- 
mans  I  inquired,  if  he  would  encourage  others  to  go 
abroad  for  their  school  privileges?  —  and  he  replied, 
most  sadly,  and  emphatically  —  ''No,  no,  indeed!" 
Likewise  from  careful  o])servation  in  several  cases,  I  am 
as  strongly  persuaded  that  it  is  unwise  to  adopt  native 
children  into  missionary  families.  The  relief  given  to 
lonely  missionary  hearts,  and  the  good  done  to  the  child 
are  far  more  than  counterbalanced  by  jealousies  awak- 
ened, by  the  arousing  of  false  expectations,  and  hy  the 
dismal  future  prepared  for  the  ward. 

In  visiting  the  various  schools  of  Burmah,  it  has 
seemed  to  us  that  the  principles  of  self-support  should 
receive  more  attention.  It  costs  little  indeed  to  support 
each  boy  or  girl  in  the  station  schools.  But  that  is  an 
additional  reason  why  they  should  be  counselled  and  en- 
couraged to  contribute  as  much  as  possible  of  the  means 
themselves.  All  this  requires  extra  ingenuity  and 
labor  on  the  part  of  already  over-burdened  missionaries, 
and  perhaps  at  present,  with  the  inadequate  force  on 
hand,  this  is  an  improvement  that  must  still  be  post- 
poned. But,  for  example,  with  that  boarding  school  of 
over  a  hundred  Burmese  girls  in  Rangoon,  one  of  the 
very  best  things  the  American  Baptist  Women's  society 
could  do,  would  be  to  send  a  strono-  christian  woman, 
accustomed  to  manual  work,  and  with  funds  sufficient  to 
establish  a  laundry  as  the  industrial  department  of  that 
seminary.  I  am  familiar  with  all  the  objections,  yet 
believe  such  a  plan  practicable  and  wise. 

Care  should  be  taken  not  to  over-crowd  schools. 
Applications  will   be  numerous,   especially    where   the 


300  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

mission  provides  support.  The  temptation  is  constantly 
to  yield  to  the  home  demand  for  large  statistics.  But 
the  efficiency  of  many  schools  is  thus  diminished.  Rigid 
rules  may  not  be  applied  at  first,  but  as  applications 
increase,  the  standard  should  be  lifted,  and  quality 
especially  should  guide  the  plans  of  administration. 
The  government  ''  grants-in-aid "  may  not  be  refused, 
but  too  much  reliance  should  not  be  placed  upon  them. 
Whenever  the  very  life  of  a  school  enterprise  has  come 
to  depend  upon  governmsnt  appropriations,  rather  than 
upon  the  mission  interest  of  the  home  churches  and 
native  support,  the  situation  demands  a  special  prayer- 
ful consideration.  The  extent  to  which  mission  schools 
should  provide  for  the  children  of  heathen  parents  will 
l)e  considered  elsewhere. 

One  lesson,  which  the  past  has  taught  in  Burmah, 
seems  to  be  quite  forgotten  by  the  large  denomination 
of  christians  Avhich,  in  the  providence  of  God,  is  chiefly 
responsible  for  the  evangelization  of  this  great  popula- 
tion. It  is  the  need  of  providing  reserves  for  advance 
movements.  Previous  to  the  last  war  with  England, 
the  missionaries  were  chiefly  limited  to  the  Tenassarim 
Provinces.  For  a  while  it  seemed  as  if  there  w^ere  too 
many,  at  least  for  the  stations  they  were  occupying. 
But  God  had  them  in  training  for  the  opportunity,  which 
the  success  of  British  arms  suddenly  threw  open. 
Where  are  those  to-day  qualifying  for  the  inevitable 
calls  soon  throughout  Upper  Burmah,  and  among  the 
hills  toward  China  and  Tibet?  The  work  already  done 
at  Mandalay  and  Bhamo  is  but  the  beginning  of  a  vast 
labor  that  will  be  required  before  the  close  of  the  pres- 
ent century.  But  to  say  nothing  of  advance,  the  pres- 
ent stations  of  British  Burmah  are  hardly  manned. 
The  special  need  to  hold  the  ground  is  more  male  mis- 
sionaries. Moreover,  Shans,  Talings,  and  other  tribes 
are  demanding  new  stations. 

In  Assam  there  is  reason  for  encouragement.  There 
are  here  sixteen  hundred  and  sixteen  gathered  into  the 
churches  of  the  American  Baptist  mission,  principally 
from  the  hill  tribes.     The  work  among  the   Garos  is 


THE    GAROS.  301 

especially  prosperous.  Among  the  Nagas'  hills  war 
with  the  British  power  of  late  has  temporarily  checked 
evangelization.  The  stations  occupied  by  the  fifteen 
missionaries  upon  the  ground  are  Tura,  Gowahati,  Now- 
ofonfi:,  Sibsasror,  Amofuri,  and  Samao^utino^.  The  tours 
among  the  extensive  tea  gardens  are  peculiarly  interest- 
inof.  The  Church  Universal  must  have  an  increasing: 
regard  for  these  missions  to  Burmah  and  Assam,  hold- 
ing as  they  do,  right  between  India  and  China,  the  key 
to  the  situation  in  Asia. 


302 


CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 


CHAPTEK  XVm. 


INDIA:   THE   COUNTRY,  PEOPLE,   AND  RELIGIONS. 


|E  turn  from  Buddhistic  countries,  where 
the  religious  situation  is  well  illustrated 
by  a  sight  we  witnessed  in  a  temple  at 
Maulmain.  The  chief  priest  was  dead, 
and  his  body  laid  out  in  state.  Working 
our  way  through  a  crowd  mostly  of 
women  and  of  yellow-rolied  Buddhist 
priests,  we  found  the  corpse  all  exposed,  without  any 
clothing  or  drapery  except  over  the  middle  person, 
every  square  inch  of  surface  from  head  to  foot  being 
covered  with  thin  bright  gold  foil.  As  the  body  had 
been  there  several  days,  and  the  temperature  was  very 
warm,  mortification  undoubtedly  had  quite  advanced, 
but  most  of  the  evidence  of  the  offensive  corruption 
beneath  was  hidden  from  sight  by  the  glittering  tinsel, 
which  however  a  touch  would  remove.  We  have  been 
touching  Buddhism  at  thousands  of  points  all  over  its 
great  glittering  surface,  and  have  found  only  a  rotting 
corpse  of  religious  faith  and  life  beneath.  The  vision 
may  be  very  bright  and  dazzling  to  the  culture  of  unbe- 
lief in  far  off  christian  lands,  but  the  grave  is  the  only 
fit  place  for  the  whole  system.  The  gold  is  not  worth 
the  disgusting  and  unhealth}^  pix)cess  of  removal.  Let 
it  Qo.  Clean  hands  have  better  business  in  this  little 
life  of  eternal  issues. 

But  though  we  leave  behind  Japan  and  China,  Siam 
and  Anam,  Burmah,  and  many  Buddhistic  isles  of  the 
sea,  we  shall  yet  meet  some  of  the  followers  of  Sid- 
dhartha  scattered  over  India,  and  still  represented  by 
large  numbers  in  Ceylon.     We  will  frequently  be  re- 


^«  0T3'  ^"v;  ^"^^ra  r^"'^  i^ 


CEYLON.  303 

minded  of  them  by  the  closely  related  ascetic  sect  of  the 
Jainas,  and  when  down  among  the  Singhalese  of  the 
great  southern  island  Ave  will  carefully  note  the  charac- 
ter of  Buddhism,  where  of  all  places  in  Asia  it  retains 
the  most  purity  of  doctrine  and  life.  But  here  the  un- 
favorable impressions  formed  elsewhere  are  only  deep- 
ened and  strengthened.  Said  the  Anglican  bishop  of 
Ceylon  at  a  late  missionary  meeting,  speaking  of  this 
system  of  idolatry  from  dail}'  observation  for  years  : 
"  Buddhism  is  not  like  Christianity  either  in  theory  or 
in  practice.  In  theory,  if  like  Christianity  at  all,  it  is 
like  Christianity  without  a  Creator,  without  an  Atoner, 
without  a  Sanctifier ;  in  practice,  it  is  a  thin  veil  of 
jflower-offerino*  and  rice-o'ivino-  over  a  very  real  and  de- 
graded  superstition  of  astrology  and  devil-worship." 
In  Ceylon,  as  elsewhere,  much  harm  is  being  done  by 
the  superficial  praise  which  Buddhism  is  receiving  in 
England  and  America.  Many  of  the  Singhalese  under- 
stand English,  keep  their  agents  in  London  on  the  alert 
for  the  publication  of  all  such  extravagant  encomiums, 
and  translate  them  for  extensive  circulation  amono'  the 

o 

people.  Buddhism  has  no  scruples  to  turn  every  occa- 
sion to  account  without  the  sliofhtest  reo^ard  to  the  truth. 
For  example,  lately  some  French  savans  engaged  two 
priests  of  Colombo  to  teach  the  Pali  language  at  Lyons, 
and  at  once  the  Singhalese  press  announced  that  France 
was  adopting  Buddhism.  Lately  also,  a  tew  travelling 
Englishmen  at  Galle  dropped  some  compliments  in  a 
temple  they  were  visiting,  and  the  enterprising  Ceylon 
Buddhist  literati  at  once  translated  and  developed  their 
acknoAvledgments  into  a  pamphlet,  which  has  been  cir- 
culated over  the  island  in  proof  that  Great  Britain  is 
preparing  to  su])stitute  Buddhism  for  Christianity. 

The  British  empire  of  India  has  an  area  of  1,474,606 
square  miles,  equal  to  all  Europe  outside  of  Eussia,  and 
contains  a  population  of  252,500,000.  The  average  is 
215  to  the  square  mile,  but  in  the  neighborhoods  of  the 
cities  of  Calcutta,  Bombay  and  Madras  the  proportion 
rises  to  from  400  to  800,  which  is  above  that  of  Eng- 
land, or  even  Belgium.     The  Free  Church  of  Scotland, 


304 


CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS, 


in  its  Jubilee  report  of  last  year,  states  that  for  political 
and  administrative  purposes  the  Indian  Empire  is  thus 
divided  :  — 


Government. 

Political  Divisions, 

Square  Miles. 

Millions 
of  People. 

Empress   of    India 
and  Parliament. 

By  the  Viceroy  and 
Governor-General 
in  Council  at  Cal- 
cutta. 

10  Provinces,  by  British  gov- 
ernors and  civilians. 

153  Feudatory  States,  by  Hin- 
du and  Moliannnedan  n"^obles, 
assisted  by  British  officers. 

899,341 
575,265 

202 
50K 

Also  that  the  whole  two  hundred  and  fifty-two  and 
a  half  millions  of  India  may  thus  roughly  be  classified 
as  to  creed  at  the  present  day  :  — 

Demon-Worshippers  (non- Aryans) 28f  millions. 

Hindus  (Aryans),  Parsees  and  Buddhists      ...  171           " 

Mohammedans 51           '* 

Christians  (of  every  tribe) If        " 

Total    .    .    .     252^  millions. 

This  vast  peninsula,  nearly  two  thousand  miles  long 
from  Kashmir  to  Ceylon,  as  also  in  width  from  Burmah 
to  the  Indus,  almost  equalling  China  Proper  in  extent, 
and  containing  five-eighths  as  large  a  population  as  the 
Celestial  Empire  or  five  times  that  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  has  come  in  the  wise  providence  of 
God  to  be  all  practically  British  territory.  Here  the 
Aryan  streams  have  reunited,  the  younger  branch  lead- 
ing the  way  by  force  of  higher  civilization  and  stronger 
religious  character.  India  is  the  old  classical  name,  to 
which  Hindustan  is  a  modern  designation,  both  of  Per- 
sian origin.  It  is  a  land  of  great  rivers,  extensive  for- 
ests, and  vast  alluvial  plains.  It  must  in  all  times  have 
presented  as  to-day  quite  irresistible  attractions  to  the 
populations  of  the  dry,  sandy,  high  table-lands  of  cen- 
tral and  western  Asia.  A  study  of  the  natural  features 
of  Asia  and  its  surroundings  shows  it  was  inevitable 
that,  when  the  primeval  nations  began  to  emigrate  from 


BHARATA-VARSHA.  305 

the  neighborhood  of  the  Caspian,  they  should  flow  in 
the  hii^est  numbers  into  the  three  directions  of  the 
provinces  of  China,  Europe  and  India.  The  natural 
resources  of  the  great  peninsula  are  evidenced  by  the 
fact  that  all  nations  or  cities  have  become  rich,  which 
have  commanded  the  carrying  trade  for  Indian  com- 
merce,—thus  in  succession  Arabia,  Tyre,  Pahiiyra,  Al- 
exandria, Baghdad,  A'enice,  Genoa;  and,  then,  after 
Vasco  di  Gama's  discovery  of  the  Cape  passage  to  the 
East,  the  Portuguese,  Dutch,  French,  and  finally  the 
English. 

India,  or  Bharata-varsha,  as  it  is  commonly  called  in 
Sanskrit  literature,  introduces  us  to  noble  races  of 
people,  claiming  to  belong  to  the  same  stock  with  Euro- 
peans and  Am'.H-icans,  and  spreading  before  our  aston- 
ished gaze  a  rich  literature,  and  evidences  of  high 
civilization  while  as  yet  our  English  forefathers  were 
barbarians.  Before  them,  however,  migrated  from  the 
north  those  numerous  aboriginal  tribes  found  to-day 
amono'  the  hills  and  iuno:les  to  the  number  of  over 
fifteen  millions,  as  also  the  great  Dravidian  races  to  the 
south  east  of  India,  speaking  Tamil,  Telugu,  Canarese, 
and  Malayalim.  These  latter,  though  under  the  same 
Turanian  classification,  are  of  a  much  higher  race  order, 
probably  came  from  the  Aryan  neighborhood,  and  were 
represented  in  the  Sanskrit  epic  poetry  by  the  celebra- 
ted Eavanas  and  VibhTshanas.  Afterwards,  somewhere 
in  the  neighborhood  of  two  thousand  years  before 
Christ,  the  primeval,  though  not  primitive,  race  of 
Arya,  or  the  ''noble,"  detached  themselves  into  three 
branches,  and  peopled  Europe,  Persia,  and  India.  Their 
language  was  the  parent  of  the  Sanskrit,  Prakrit,  Zend, 
Persian,  Armenian,  Hellenic,  Italic,  Keltic,  Teutonic 
and  Slavonic.  Gradually  these  Hindu  Aryans,  as  their 
Persian  brethren  called  them  after  their  separation, 
overran  the  whole  country. 

Alexander  the  Great  touched  the  borders  of  India  in 
327  B.  C.  In  the  seventh  century  of  the  Christian  era,  be- 
fore the  advancing  Mahometan  hordes  came  the  fugitive 
Parsees,  expelled  from  Persia  by  Khalif  Omar,  a  remnant 


306  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

of  the  old  Zoroaster  faith,  still  prominent  throughout  the 
country  as  next  to  the  English  the  most  enterprising  in 
business.  Then  followed  the  successive  Mahometan 
conquests  by  Arabs,  Turks,  Afghans,  Moguls,  and  Per- 
sians, their  descendants  and  Hindu  converts  numbering 
to-day  a  sixth  of  the  population.  At  the  close  of  the 
thiiieenth  century  the  Crescent  was  carried  triumphantly 
beyond  the  Vindhya  range  into  the  Deccan.  The  fa- 
mous Tamerlane  was  proclaimed  Emperor  of  India  at 
Delhi  in  1398.  Baber,  the  sixth  from  him,  was  the  first 
Mogul  Emperor,  and  this  dynasty  continually  increased 
in  power  and  splendor  under  Akbar,  Jahangir  and  Shah 
Jehan,  culminating  with  Aurungzebe,  and  represented 
finally  by  the  nominal  leader  of  the  Sepoy  rebellion 
of  1857. 

The  British  East  India  Company,  though  formed  in 
1600,  had  up  to  the  middle  of  the  last  century  only  six 
fiictories  scattered  over  the  peninsula.  The  real  be- 
ginning of  English  political  ascendancy  was  in  1757, 
when  Robert  Clive,  with  a  few  hundred  British  soldiers, 
conquered  the  Mogul  viceroy  of  Bengal.  This  was 
the  celebrated  battle  of  Plassy.  Meanwhile  colonies 
had  been  established  at  various  points  by  Portuguese, 
Dutch,  Danes,  and  French  ;  and  with  them  all  the  British 
were  brought  into  frequent  collision.  The  almost  uni- 
form success  of  the  English  Company  attracted  alli- 
ances with  the  native  chiefs,  and  gradually  the  British 
Empire  became  extended  over  nearly  the  whole  country. 
The  influence  of  the  other  European  nations  lingers  at 
a  few  isolated  points;  and  some  of  the  native  states 
claim  a  measure  of  independence,  which  in  any  crisis 
that  may  arise  would  not  l)e  allowed  to  strain  British 
interests  ;  but  practically  all  India  belongs  to  the  Eng- 
lish. Not  all  the  annexations  can  be  justified,  anymore 
than  the  present  government  support  from  the  opium 
trade,  yet  on  the  whole  this  vast  extension  of  territorial 
sway  has  been  a  providential  responsibility  which  could 
not  be  avoided.  Step  by  step  the  dominion  has  mostly 
been  forced  upon  the  British  government.  And  espe- 
cially  since,    with    the    suppression    of   the    mutiny, 


BRITISH    RULE    IN    INDIA.  307 

the  power  hiis  heen  taken  back  by  the  Crown  from  out 
of  the  unworth}'  hands  of  the  great  commercial  com- 
pany, all  Christendom  has  overwhelming  reasons  for 
gratitude  that  the  sovereignty  of  England  extends  over 
India. 

British  supremacy  over  these  two  hundred  and  fifty- 
two  and  a  half  millions,  during  especially  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century,  has  undoul)tedly  proved  a  rich 
blessing.  Immediately  after  the  awful  events  of  1857, 
Lord  Lawrence,  the  viceroy,  tells  us  that,  in  common 
with  others,  he  was  led  to  "  ponder  deeply  on  what  may 
be  the  faults  and  shortcomings  of  the  British  as  a  chris- 
tian nation  in  India."  It  was  finally  realized  that  what 
made  England  powerful  and  beneficent  at  home,  the 
Bible,  her  Christianity,  her  evangelizing  enterprise,  was 
required  for  the  permanency  and  benediction  of  British 
institutions  in  India.  The  days,  which  banished  Judson 
to  Burmah,  and  shut  up  Carey,  Marshman,  and  Ward  in 
Serampore,  were  passed  forever.  Recently  the  India 
Government  laid  before  Parliament  an  ofiicial  report,  in 
which  it  frankly  acknowledges  "the  great  o1)ligation 
under  which  it  is  laid  !)y  the  benevolent  exertions  made 
by  six  hundred  missionaries,  whose  blameless  example 
and  self-denying  labors  are  infusing  new  vigor  into 
the  stereotyped  life  of  the  great  populations  placed 
under  English  rule,  and  are  preparing  them  to  be  in 
every  way  l)etter  men  and  better  citizens  of  the  great 
empire  in  which  they  dwell." 

It  is  generally  said  that  a  recurrence  of  the  mutiny  is 
unlikely,  and  even  impossible.  Surely,  we  felt  as  we 
visited  the  scene  of  the  horril)le  massacre  at  Cawnpore, 
and  roamed  amid  the  ruins  of  the  Residency  at  Lucknow, 
and  recalled  the  heroic  deaths  at  the  Cashmere  gate  at 
Delhi,  surely  it  is  to  be  devoutly  hoped  that  all  this 
reign  of  terror  may  never  again  be  inflicted  upon  both 
the  foreign  and  native  populations  of  India.  But 
familiarity  with  the  situation  has  served  rather  to 
awaken,  than  to  allay  anxieties.  Increasing  multitudes 
of  the  natives  are  becoming  educated  and  consequently 
more  and  more  self-reliant.     Their  education  is  chiefly 


308  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

secular,  and  practically  anti-christian.  The  mutual 
jealousies  and  hostilities  l^etween  the  rival  nations  of  the 
vast  peninsula  are  being  allayed  by  the  constantly 
increasing  commercial  intercourse  along  the  great  public 
highways,  railroads  and  canals.  With  each  succeeding 
3^ear  British  power  can  depend  less  upon  these  rivalries. 
The  native  press  has  thoroughly  informed  the  masses  of 
the  frequent  defeat  of  English  troops  in  Afghanistan 
and  South  Africa,  and  the  impressions  of  British  prowess, 
made  especially  during  the  suppression  of  the  mutiny, 
are  being  effaced.  England  for  many  years  now  has 
relied  upon  volunteers  for  the  recruiting  of  her  armies, 
which,  though  it  may  answer  best  in  a  great  national 
emergency  such  as  the  American  war  for  the  Union, 
will  not  generally  in  ordinary  times  keep  the  ranks  up 
to  a  high  standard  in  personal  appearance  and  efficiency. 
The  British  military  force  is  not  to-day  what  it  is  gener- 
ally supposed  to  be  by  the  nation  it  so  proudly 
represents.  There  are  too  many  boys  and  dissipated 
men.  I  should  dread  to  have  any  corps  of  the  British 
army  as  at  present  constituted  meet  an  equal  number  of 
Germans  or  even  French  or  Russians.  And  such  views, 
particularly  in  the  light  of  late  events,  are  gradually 
working  into  the  mind  of  India's  millions.  Here 
England's  overwhehning  superiority  upon  the  seas 
avails  but  little.  I  have  heard  leading  natives  of  Cal- 
cutta, Madras,  and  Bombay  giving  free  utterance  to  the 
most  disloyal  sentiments.  If  all  these  threatening 
clouds  are  to  clear  away,  it  will  be  under  the  influence 
of  Christian  Missions.  The  ties,  which  ])ind  converts  to 
a  christian  government,  are  real,  and  they  have  proved 
to  ])e  above  all  others  reliable.  They  will  not  lend  their 
influence  to  the  establishment  of  either  a  Hindu,  a  ]Ma- 
hometan,  or  an  infidel  dynasty.  The  wisest  English 
statesmanship  for  India  is  the  encouragement  of 
evangelization  in  every  proper  way. 

Ninety-eight  languages,  with  a  much  larger  number 
of  dialects,  are  spoken  in  India.  The  principal  are  the 
Hindi,  Hindustani,  Bengali,  JNIahrathi,  Telusfu,  Tamil, 
Gondwani,  Punjabi,  Sindhi,  Canarese,  Malayalim,  Sing- 


LANGUAGE    AND    LITERATURE.  309 

halese,  Orij^a,  Kashmiri,  Gujerati,  Nepauli,  and  Bho- 
tani.  One  hundred  millions  speak  the  Hindi,  forty 
millions  the  Bengali,  thirty-five  millions  the  Tamil  and 
Telugu,  sixteen  millions  the  Pmijahi,  fifteen  millions 
the  Marathi,  ten  millions  the  Gujerati.  The  differences 
in  speech  of  these  various  nationalities  are  as  great  as 
among  the  different  countries  of  Europe.  Yet  almost 
entirely  ])y  the  labors  of  christian  missionaries  these 
various  languages  have  been  mastered,  and  into  them 
have  been  translated  the  Bible  and  a  great  variety  of 
christian  literature.  It  is  estimated  that  in  nine  of 
the  Indian  languages  have  appeared  severally  the  fol- 
lowing number  of  christian  pu1)lications  of  various  sizes. 
Hindustani,  six  hundred  ;  Hindi,  three  hundred;  Ben- 
gali, five  hundred  ;  Punjabi,  fifty ;  Marathi,  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  ;  Singhalese,  six  hundred ;  Telugu,  two 
hundred;  Malayalim,  two  hundred;  and  Tamil,  twelve 
hundred.  It  is  really  bewildering  to  contemplate  the 
already  accomplished  literary  work  of  the  missionaries 
in  India.  In  this  way  alone,  missionary  investments 
in  India  have  paid  politically  and  commercially,  many 
fold.  But  the  labor  is  by  no  means  complete.  A 
christian  literature  for  all  India  is  task  sufficient  for 
hundreds  of  missionaries  for  another  century,  aided  by 
thousands  of  natives.  The  Bible,  and  Butler's  Analogy, 
and  Paley's  Evidences,  and  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress, and  the  Imitation  of  Christ  by  Thomas  a  Kempis, 
and  a  few  other  well-known  translations  have  made  a 
grand  beginning  among  these  two  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of  people.  But  it  is  only  meeting  the  com- 
mencement of  the  demand  on  the  part  of  those  accus- 
tomed to  enormous  quantities  of  literature.  They  have 
a  single  epic  poem,  entitled  Maha-bharata,  which  fills 
eight  large  volumes.  Moreover,  much  of  the  work  of  the 
past  needs  to  be  revised  in  the  light  of  better  acquaint- 
ance with  the  languages  ;  and  unquestionably,  even  if 
there  were  no  preaching  and  teaching  requiring  atten- 
tion, there  is  book-makino'  enouirh  on  hand  in  India  to 
command  all  the  strensfth  and  time  of  the  whole  mis- 


310  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

sionary  body,  at  least  for  the  present  and  next  two 
generations. 

The  architecture  of  India  is  enough  of  itself  to  inter- 
est the  Christian  world  in  this  land  and  people.  Upon 
its  pages  they  have  written  their  history,  described  their 
religious  principles,  and  set  forth  in  plain  contrast  their 
various  national  characters.  In  the  North  and  South, 
in  the  East  and  West,  everywhere  the  architectural 
book  lies  open,  and  I  could  read  of  Dra vidian,  and  Hin- 
du-Aryan, and  Mogul,  and  British  conquests  ;  of  Brahman- 
ism,  Mahometanism,  and  Christianity ;  of  an  elaborated 
caste  system,  of  the  condition  of  women,  of  the  need  of 
foreign  domination  —  and  much  else  upon  their  records 
of  stone  and  masonry.  Indian  architecture  expresses 
original  thought ;  it  is  not  the  mere  cop34ng  or  plagiarism 
of  European  architecture.  As  jMr.  Fergusson  observes, 
"  There  is  no  country  where  the  outlines  of  ethnology  as 
applied  to  art  can  be  so  easily  perceived."  Writing  of 
Indian  buildings,  he  testifies  triily  — "  They  display  an 
exuberance  of  fancy,  a  lavishness  of  labor,  and  an  elab- 
oration of  detail,  to  ]~>e  found  nowhere  else.  They  may 
contain  nothing  as  sublime  as  the  hall  at  Karnac,  noth- 
ing so  intellectual  as  the  Parthenon,  nor  so  construct- 
ively grand  as  a  medieval  cathedral  ;  but  for  certain 
other  qualities — not  perhaps  of  the  highest  kind,  yet 
very  important  in  architectural  art  —  the  Indian  build- 
ings stand  alone."  We  can  never  forget  the  Jumna 
Musjid,  the  Hall  of  Audience  where  stood  the  famous 
thirty-million-dollars  peacock  throne,  and  the  Kootub 
Minar,  all  in  Delhi  and  vicinity  ;  nor  the  mosque  of 
Aurungzebe  at  Benares  ;  nor  the  palace.  Pearl  mosque 
and  tomb  of  Akbar,  in  and  near  Agra  ;  nor  especially 
the  often  described,  yet  indescribable  Taj,  the  chief 
architectural  pearl  of  India,  well  named  the  "  Koh-i-noor 
of  its  beauty."  The  structure  is  of  purest  marble,  and 
estimated  to  have  cost  at  least  ten  millions  of  dollars. 
Here  rests  the  beautiful  empress  of  Shah  Jehan,  and 
he  also  who  promised  her  on  her  deathbed  that  he 
would  erect  to  her  memory  the  grandest  mausoleum  of 
the  v^orld.     Upon  one  of  our  repented  visits  to    this 


THE    RIG- VEDA.  311 

matchless  shrine  of  art,  we  dismissed  the  attendants, 
and  standing  beside  the  sleeping  forms  of  loving  and 
beloved  royalty,  we  sung  together, — 

"  Love  divine,  all  love  excelling  —  " 

Brahmanism  is  the  dominant  religion  of  the  country. 
It  is  the  offspring  of  the  Vedic  and  grandchild  of  the 
Aryan.  The  Vedic  religion  gave  birth  to  the  Brahman 
hierarchy  not  later  than  the  fourth  century  l^efore  Christ, 
and  perhaps  much  earlier.  The  oldest  of  the  sacred  writ- 
ings of  the  Hindus,  the  foundation  of  their  religion  and 
literature,  is  the  Veda,  or  the  four  Vedas,  consisting  of 
hymns  to  the  deities  and  commentaries  upon  them  in 
prose.  The  oldest  and  most  important  is  the  Rig- Veda, 
compiled  probably  about  fourteen  hundred  years  before 
Christ.  The  monotheism  of  those  ancient  hymns,  not- 
withstanding their  accompanying  worship  of  the  powers 
of  nature,  their  theory  of  inspiration  superior  to  that  of 
Mahomet  and  all  other  religions  save  Christianity,  the 
absence  of  that  gross  idolatry,  since  universal  among 
the  Hindus,  and  the  simplicity  of  the  ritual,  all  take  us 
back  close  to  the  original  revelation  of  God  to  mankind. 
Still  the  pantheistic  and  polytheistic  tendencies  are  very 
plain,  and  there  is  much  in  the  old  Vedic  religion  which 
carries  me  back  to  the  imperial  altar  of  heaven  worship 
at  Peking.  A  few  lines  from  the  Rig- Veda  will  interest 
the  reader.  They  are  translated  by  the  Sanskrit  Pro- 
fessor Williams  of  Oxford. 

"  What  god  shall  we  adore  Avith  sacrifice  ? 
Him  let  us  praise,  the  golden  child  that  rose 
In  the  beginning,  who  was  born  the  lord  — 
The  one  sole  lord  of  all  that  is  —  who  made 
The  earth,  who  formed  the  sky,  who  giveth  life. 
Who  giveth  strength,  whose  bidding  gods  revere, 
Whose  hiding-place  is  immortalit3% 
Whose  shadow,  death ;  who  by  his  might  is  king 
Of  all  the  breathing,  sleeping,  waking  world  —  " 

It  is  interesting  to  note  evidence  from  the  Veda  that 
the  Hindu  mind  anticipated  to  some  extent  our  present 
astronomical   knowledge   two    thousand  years    before 


312  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Copernicus.  We  read  from  the  Aitareyabrahmana 
portion  of  the  Veda  —  ''The  sun  never  sets  nor  rises. 
When  people  think  to  themselves  the  sun  is  setting,  he 
only  changes  about  (viparyasyate)  after  reaching  the 
end  of  the  day,  and  makes  night  below  and  day  to  what 
is  on  the  other  side."  But  with  all  its  acuteness  the 
Hindu  mind,  in  its  first  gropings  after  truth  in  the  fee- 
ble flickering  light  of  nature,  saw  no  plain  w^ay  of  escape 
from  the  evils  of  this  life.  Its  San-Khya-Karika  frankly 
acknowledges  that  all  their  S'ruti  Anusravika,  or  Yedic 
knowledge,  is  powerless  for  salvation.  Likewise  all 
world-religions  have  confessed,  as  did  Brahmanism  in 
its  subsequent  Buddhism,  and  significantly  at  about  the 
same  time,  500  B.  C,  the  movement  under  Zoroaster 
in  Persia,  that  of  Confucius  in  China,  and  of  Pythagoras 
in  Greece.  How  strange  that  the  culture  of  unbelief  in 
modern  times  should  so  misinterpret  the  acknowledg- 
ments of  the  vast  majority  of  the  human  race  ! 

In  the  Code  of  Menu,  nine  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  we  see  the  great  caste  system  of  India  develop- 
ing, the  priesthood  strengthening  their  ascendancy  in 
every  possible  way.  The  divisions  of  society  are  the 
Brahmans,  Kshatriyas,  Vaisyas,  and  the  Sudras.  The 
Brahmans  are  represented  as  the  supreme  of  all  created 
intelligences,  for  whom  the  world  and  all  that  it  con- 
tains were  made.  The  third  and  fourth  castes  have 
come  to  be  divided  into  a  great  number  of  subordinate 
castes.  The  Brahminical  religion,  and  consequently  the 
vast  majority  of  the  population  of  India,  is  under  con- 
trol of  this  caste  sj^stem.  There  is  nothing  like  it  in 
the  social  life  of  other  people.  It  is  a  religious  institu- 
tion. There  is  more  than  the  usual  barrier  between  the 
diflerent  ranks  of  society.  The  varieties  are  in  kind  as 
among  beasts  and  birds.  We  say  that  all  men  are 
equal  before  God,  and  that,  while  the  various  ranks  are 
allowed  in  society,  they  are  out  of  place  in  divine  wor- 
ship. This  is  a  very  abhorrent  idea  to  Brahmanism,  for, 
according  to  the  Code  of  Menu,  it  is  before  the  mind  of 
God  especially  that  the  inherent  distinctions  of  caste 
appear.     By  birth  and  divine  right  the  Brahmans  are  at 


HINDU    CASTE    SYSTEM.  313 

the  head  of  all  creatures.  They  are  deities  in  human 
shape,  who  have  proceeded  from  the  mouth  of  Brahma, 
the  great  pantheistic  spirit,  even  as  the  Kshatriyas  from 
his  arm,  the  Vaisyas  from  his  thigh,  and  the  Sudras 
from  his  feet.  The  Menu  Institutes  declare  :  "  Brah- 
mans  must  under  all  circumstances  he  honored,  for  they 
are  to  be  regarded  as  supreme  divinities  (paramam 
daivatam) ."  One  infallible  pope  is  bad  enough  at  Rome, 
but  with  hundreds  of  thousands  of  them  scattered  over 
India,  the  situation  becomes  indescril)able.  And  espe- 
cially so,  since  far  more  extensive  power  is  allowed  the 
Brahmans  than  ever  Roman  pontiff  assumed.  The  Code 
declares  asrain :  "  Who,  without  brino^ino-  destruction 
upon  himself,  can  provoke  those  men  (Brahmans),  by 
whose  imprecation  all-devouring  fire  w^as  created,  and 
by  whom  the  undrinkal)le  ocean  was  svyallowed,  and  the 
wasted  moon  restored  to  its  full  size."  Many  times  I 
have  seen  them  worshipped  as  gods,  and  pretending  to 
perform  divine  acts.  Occasionally  they  have  caught  my 
eye,  and  by  their  smile  acknowledged  the  conscious  de- 
ceitfulness  of  it  all,  even  with  the  cringing  devotees 
prostrate  at  their  feet. 

During  a  journey  of  several  wrecks  and  of  several 
hundred  miles,  off  the  railways  among  the  fields  and 
forests  and  villages  of  Southern  India,  I  came  first  to 
fully  realize  the  strength  of  this  vast  Hindu  caste  s^^s- 
tem,  its  sovereignty  over  the  religion  of  the  people,  and 
the  fact  that  it  is  the  greatest  hindrance  to  Christianity 
among  almost  a  seventh  of  the  population  of  our  globe. 
One  day  upon  the  Buckingham  Canal  I  hired  a  boat, 
the  owner  contracting  to  take  me  by  midnight  to  the 
vicinity  of  Ongole  in  the  Telugu  country,  where  an 
ox-team  was  awaiting  me.  It  necessitated  constant 
progress.  The  agreement  was,  that  though  he  might 
take  other  passengers  aboard,  there  must  be  no  delay. 
Soon  two  high-caste  Hindus  joined  me,  but  they  Avere 
careful  to  avoid  the  terril)le  catastrophe  of  foiling  under 
my  shadow.  At  noon  they  requested  me  through  my 
interpreter  to  allow  them  to  go  ashore  at  the  next  vil- 
lage, and  there  to  buy,   cook  and  eat  their  food.     I 


314  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

replied,  I  could  wait  only  long  enough  for  them  to  do 
their  marketing,  and  offered  them  the  use  of  my  own 
cookmg  arrangements.  This  they  declined,  because  it 
would  break  their  caste,  and  for  the  same  reason  they 
would  not  touch  an  article  of  my  food,  though  I  had  a 
superabundance  and  pressed  it  upon  them,  as  the  night 
came  on,  and  they  had  eaten  nothing  for  the  whole  day. 
How  fearful  it  is  thus  and  in  a  thousand  other  ways  to 
break  caste  may  be  seen  from  this,  also  out  of  the  Menu 
Code :  "  A  Brahman  neglecting  his  own  appointed 
caste  duty  (dharmat  svakat),  will  be  born  as  a  vomit- 
eating  demon,"  (that  is  in  his  next  state  of  transmigra- 
tion ;)  '^a  Kshatriya,  as  a  demon  feeding  on  excrement 
and  dead  bodies ;  a  Vaisya,  as  a  demon  feeding  on 
putrid  carrion." 

A  cultured  Hindu  remarked  lately :  "  Properly 
speaking,  we  have  now  no  religious  belief;  any  one  can 
believe  what  he  likes,  so  long  as  he  retains  caste."  This 
is  doubtless  true  among  the  more  accomplished  classes 
of  India.  If  the  caste  features  were  gone,  the  Hindu 
edifice  would  quickly  tumble  into  ruins.  Says  the 
Sanskrit  professor  at  Oxford  :  "  It  is  difficult  for  Euro- 
peans to  understand  how  the  pride  of  caste,  as  a  divine 
ordinance,  interpenetrates  the  whole  being  of  a  Hindu. 
He  looks  upon  his  caste  as  his  veritable  god ;  and  those 
caste  rules,  which  we  believe  to  be  a  hmdrance  to  his 
adoption  of  the  true  religion,  are  to  him  the  very 
essence  of  all  religion,  for  they  influence  his  whole  life 
and  conduct."  That  here  there  must  be  no  compromise 
is  the  prevailing  judgment  of  Christian  Missions. 
Eoman  Catholics,  the  Leipsic  Society,  and  a  few  others 
have  adopted  a  very  lenient  course  with  the  colossal 
evil ;  ])ut  it  is  wiser  to  attack  it  directly,  since  it  is  the 
very  citadel  of  Hinduism.  True  Christianity  can  make 
no  progress  except  over  its  ruins.  It  is  too  cold,  and 
cruel,  and  crushing,  and  heart-hardening  to  warrant 
other  than  the  most  determined  hostility  on  the  part  of 
the  missionaries.  And  for  such  attitude  and  effort  the 
assistance  they  are  receiving  in  the  providence  of  God 
in  many  ways  surely  emphasizes  the  duty.     Railroads, 


BENARES.  315 

with  the  refusal  of  government  to  construct  them  on  the 
caste  principle,  are  proving  a  great  blow  to  the  system. 
Christian  family  influence,  the  education  of  women,  and 
all  contact  with  better  social  life  are  surely  and  rapidlj^ 
at  work  underminmg  the  caste  of  the  Hindus.  The 
terrible  power  of  the  oppressor  is  being  broken,  and 
evangelization  must  co-operate  without  compromise. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  bewildering  immensity  of  the 
Hindu  Sanskrit  literature,  as  illustrated  by  the  two 
great  epic  poems  —  the  Ramayana  and  Maha-bharata. 
These,  Avritten  from  three  to  five  centuries  l)efore  Christ, 
indicate  the  desperate  efibrts  of  the  Brahman  leaders  to 
counteract  the  influence  of  Buddhism  and  win  back  the 
seceding  millions.  The  Brahmans  had  distributed  the 
deity  among  themselves,  and  monopolized  him.  Bud- 
dhism was  a  popular  revolt  against  this.  Its  error  was 
in  going  to  the  atheistic  extreme.  In  recognizing  at 
the  l^eginning  no  supreme  deity,  in  affirming  the  only 
god  is  what  man  himself  can  become,  and  in  substituting 
mere  contemplation  for  prayer.  Buddhism  left  exposed 
a  weak  position  which  wily  Hindu  Brahmanism  was 
sure  to  assault.  Any  quantity  of  superhuman  gods 
were  soon  provided,  commencing  with  the  Triad, — ■ 
Brahma  the  Creator,  Yishnu  the  Preserver,  and  Siva 
the  Destroyer  ;  continuing  with  giving  Vishnu  ten  incar- 
nations ;  and  so  on  till  the  Brahmans  claim  to  have  pro- 
vided over  against  the  Buddhist  atheism  three  hundred 
and  thirty  million  deities.  Against  such  rivalry  Bud- 
dhism had  to  succumb,  although  it  also  resorted  to  the 
multiplication  of  gods.  The  chief  reason  was  probably 
that  they  were  kept  in  too  subordinate  a  position,  the 
Buddhist  gods,  after  all,  never  rising  above  the  rank  of 
slaves  to  the  ascetics. 

In  the  Golden  Temple  of  Benares  we  linger  a  mo- 
ment. The  revolting  picture  is  the  same  we  have  wit- 
nessed at  scores  of  places  all  over  India.  The  sacred 
cows  are  strolling  around  the  enclosures.  A  woman 
seizes  the  tail  of  one,  and  with  the  holy  excrements 
bathes  her  face.  Obscene  idols  are  all  around.  The 
X(inga  surrounded  by  the  Yoni  are  the  most  conspicu- 


316  CHKISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ous  objects  of  worship.  Siva  and  Parvati  or  Durga  are 
being  propitiated  by  multitudes  with  libations  and  gar- 
lands. It  is  all  unspeakal)ly  vile,  and  self-respect  com- 
pels retreat.  Yet  we  must  acknowledge  that,  as  we 
gazed  upon  the  faces,  attitudes,  and  gestures  of  the  wor- 
shippers, there  was  not  that  sensuality  of  expression 
and  l)eastly  demeanor  to  1)e  expected  from  the  loath- 
some obscene  surroundings.  Indeed,  at  the  Ganges 
bathings,  along  the  Benares  ghauts,  as  also  at  the  great 
Allahabad  Mela,  we  did  not  see  among  the  devotees 
that  abandonment  of  all  decency  in  appearance  we  an- 
ticipated. No  doubt  all  this  Siva  worship  is  grossly 
and  vastly  demoralizing,  as  evidenced  in  the  Tantras 
and  in  the  customs  of  the  Saktas  ;  yet  largely  the  sensual 
must  be  overborne  by  the  intended  symbolism  of  divine 
reproduction,  of  life  from  death,  of  creation  from  de- 
struction. 

The  ]\Ionkey  Ten  p'e  of  Benares  contains  hundreds  cf 
these  creatures  as  o])jects  of  worship.  The  all-pervad- 
ing god  is  in  them  also,  and  thus  renders  them  a  suita- 
ble cluster  of  divinities  for  the  devotions  of  the  people. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  alligator  pond  and  temple  near 
Kurrachee.  The  most  disgusting  living  features  of 
Hinduism  are  the  persons  and  habits  of  the  multitude  of 
fakirs  scattered  over  the  country,  and  gathered  in  great 
numbers  at  the  Allahabad  Mela.  They  are  as  loath- 
some objects  as  nakedness  and  filth  and  self-mortification 
can  effect.  The  car  of  Jurganot,  we  were  glad  to  see, 
had  become  a  sadly  dilapidated  affliir.  The  image  itself 
is  ludicrously  repulsive.  Indeed,  it  is  very  difiicult  for 
Europeans  and  Americans  to  see  anything  else  than 
childishness  and  grotesqueness  in  the  larger  proportion 
of  the  exaggerated  Hindu  syml)olism.  Thus,  for  exam- 
ple, in  the  appearance  sometimes  given  to  Siva,  with  a 
trident,  three  eyes,  a  black  throat,  holding  a  crescent, 
a  tiger's  skin,  an  elephant's  skin,  a  rattle,  &c.  But  to 
the  Brahmanists  everything  is  designed  as  symbolical. 
The  trident  signifies  creation,  destruction,  and  regener- 
ation. The  three  eyes  mean  past,  present  and  future. 
The  black  throat  is  from  the  deadly  poison  Siva  churned 


THE    WORK    OF    ISLAM.  317 

out  of  the  ocean,  which,  but  for  his  swallowing  it, 
would  have  destro}  ed  all  living  l^eings  ;  and  thus  on,  ad 
infinitum. 

The  Moslemism  (blind  obedience)  of  India,  claims  as 
many  followers  to-day  as  the  entire  population  of  the 
American  Union.  Under  the  English  Empress,  there- 
fore, there  are  many  more  Mahometans  than  are 
governed  by  the  Sultan.  It  is  a  cause  for  profound 
gratitude  that,  among  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  false  prophet,  perfect  religious  freedom 
and  full  opportunity  for  evangelizing  labor  are  guaran- 
teed. Still,  missionary  work  in  their  direction,  even 
under  these  advantages,  has  been  scarcely  more  fruitful 
than  among  the  Moslems  of  Turkey  and  Persia.  Diffi- 
cult questions  of  comparative  religions  are  presented 
right  here.  Has  Islam  (that  is,  submission)  on  the 
whole  proved  a  benefit  to  Asia?  In  India,  is  it  a  greater 
or  less  o]:>stacle  than  a  corresponding  amount  of  Brah- 
manism  to  the  advance  of  Christianity?  The  one  who 
first  came  to  the  front  in  this  great  world  movement, 
Mahomet,  "the  praised"  or  "the  desired,"  was  born  at 
Mecca  in  Arabia  about  570  A.  D.  The  majority  of  the 
tribes  around  him  were  grossly  idolatrous.  Largely 
the  old  Sabasnan  worship  of  the  host  of  heaven  pre- 
vailed. Most  of  the  nominal  Christianity  of  the  time 
had  become  very  corrupt.  Its  reproach  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  prevailing  idolatries  on  the  other,  with  lawless 
habits  and  cruel  customs,  such  as  Imrying  daughters 
alive,  required,  in  the  absence  of  anything  lietter,  such  a 
mighty  conflagration  as  was  Mahometanism.  There 
were  not  life  and  vio^or  enous^h  in  Christendom  to  meet 
the  pressing  necessity  throughout  Southern  and  West- 
ern Asia  and  Northern  Africa.  The  Koran,  even  with 
its  Kaal^a  superstition  and  its  argument  of  the  sword, 
were  at  the  time  a  great  blessing  to  the  world.  It  swept 
into  utter  destruction  a  vast  deal  of  false  Christianity, 
and  an  amazing  amount  of  the  grossest  superstitions  and 
idolatries.  This  bible  of  the  Moslems  was  a  compila- 
tion of  Mahomet's  sayings,  made  after  his  death  by  order 
of  Caliph  Othman.     Of  scarcely  secondary  authority 


318  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

are  the  collected  traditions  of  the  false  prophet's  words 
and  actions,  called  the"Hadis"  or  '' Simna."  It  was 
because  of  the  hostility  of  Mahomet  to  idolatry,  that  he 
was  compelled  to  flee  to  Medina  in  622  A.  D.  This 
flight  is  called  the  Hegira,  and  from  it  the  Mahometan 
era  is  dated.  Henceforth  soon  the  alternatives  were 
given  to  all  ''the  people  of  the  book  "  (that  is,  Christians 
and  Jews),  the  Koran,  tribute,  or  the  sword;  and  all 
idolaters  were  to  be  slain. 

In  about  a  century  Mahometanism  extended  from  the 
Pyrenees  to  the  Himalayas ;  and  we  have  seen  how  the 
conquering  religion  spread  beyond  over  the  vast  penin- 
sula. Of  its  influence  in  India,  we  can  agree  in  part 
with  Sir  William  Muir,  in  his  standard  "Life  of  Ma- 
homet," when,  from  his  long  experience  in  that  land,  he 
testifies  :  "  We  may  freely  concede  that  it  banished  for 
ever  many  of  the  darker  elements  of  superstition  for 
ages  shrouding  the  peninsula.  Idolatry  vanished  be- 
fore the  battle-cry  of  Islam  ;  the  doctrine  of  the  unity 
and  infinite  perfections  of  God  and  of  a  special  all- 
pervading  Providence  became  a  living  principle  in  the 
hearts  and  lives  of  the  followers  of  Mahomet,  even  as 
in  his  own.  An  absolute  surrender  and  submission  to 
the  Divine  Will  (the  idea  conveyed  by  the  very  name 
of  Islam)  was  demanded  as  the  first  requirement  of  the 
religion.  Nor  are  social  virtues  wanting.  Brotherly 
love  is  inculcated  toward  all  within  the  circle  of  the 
faith  ;  infanticide  is  proscribed  ;  orphans  are  to  be  pro- 
tected, and  slaves  treated  with  consideration  ;  intoxi- 
cating drinks  are  prohibited,  and  ^Mahometanism  may 
boast  of  a  degree  of  temperance  unknown  to  any  other 
creed."  But,  when  Sir  William  IshuY  argues  that  these 
benefits  have  been  purchased  at  too  costly  a  price  ;  that, 
because  of  the  perpetuated  polygamy,  divorce,  and 
slavery,  the  religious  intolerance,  and  the  added  ele- 
ments of  hostility  to  Christianity,  Mahometanism  has 
not  been,  on  the  whole,  a  benefaction  to  the  human 
race,  I  cannot  agree  with  him.  It  has  been  a  part  of 
the  all-overruling  wisdom  of  the  centuries.  It  holds  up 
to-day  one  hundred  and  seventy  millions  of  our  race  in 


BRAHMO    SOMAJ.  319 

a  civilization  above  that  of  the  heathen  world.  And, 
though  evangelizing  success  among  them  is  dela^^ed,  the 
times  are  maturing  for  the  grand  utihzing  of  their 
monotheism,  obedience,  and  social  virtues.  Culture  is 
sure  in  some  respects  to  strengthen  unbelief,  but  igno- 
rance is  not,  therefore,  a  desirable  handmaid  for  Christi- 
anity. I  may  add  right  here  the  interesting  Moslem 
prayer,  the  First  Sura  of  the  Koran,  that  which  serves 
to  the  world  of  Islam,  as  Dr.  P.  Schaft'  observes,  as  the 
Lord's  prayer  to  Christendom,  and  which  every  pious 
Moslem  repeats  five  times  a  day  :  — 

**  In  the  name  of  Allah,  the  Compassionate,  the  Merciful. 

Praise  be  to  Allah,  Lord  of  the  worlds  ! 

The  Compassionate,  the  Merciful, 

King  on  the  day  of  reckoning ! 

Thee  only  do  we  worship,  and  to  Thee  do  we  cry  for  help. 

Guide  Thou  us  on  the  right  path, 

The  path  of  those  to  whom  Thou  hast  been  gracious  — 

With  whom  Thou  art  not  angry, 

And  who  go  not  astray.     Amen." 

The  Parsees,  residing  mostly  on  the  western  coast, 
have  none  of  the  Moslem  aggressiveness.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  meet  these  believers  in  Ormazd  and  Ahriman,  to 
look  into  their  Yendidad  Sade  or  Avesta  books,  and  to 
see  their  Towers  of  Silence  upon  Malabar  Hill.  We 
shudder  at  their  vultures,  to  which  they  commit  the 
bodies  of  their  dead.  ^Ye  hear  Chunder  Sen  deliver 
his  annual  address  before  the  Brahmo  Somaj  at  Calcutta. 
It  was  a  most  painful  spectacle  ;  a  great  orator,  master 
of  the  English,  still  loaded  down  with  his  heathenism, 
laboring  at  the  impossi])le  task  of  forcing  an  entrance 
through  the  strait  and  narrow  gate  into  the  temple  of 
Christ.  His  movement  in  the  sphere  of  Hinduism  is 
proving  the  same  miscarriage  as  many  affirm  of  Hya- 
cinthe  in  the  church  of  Eome.  More  pleasant  to  note  is 
that  strange  native  "  Syrian  Church  of  Malabar,"  or 
"Christians  of  St.  Thomas"  as  they  call  themselves, 
located  on  the  southwest  India  coast  of  Travancore  and 
Cochin.  Here  are  many  thousands,  who  can  probably 
trace  back  to  the  preaching  of  the  Apostle  Thomas  him- 


320  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

self.  We  know  that  Pantaenus  of  Alexandria  visited 
them  in  the  second  century,  and  they  were  represented 
at  the  Council  of  Nice  in  A.  D.  325.  They  preserved 
the  only  manuscript  complete  of  the  Syriac  Bible  that 
is  now  in  Europe,  except  that  at  Milan. 

The  great  political  question  of  India  to-day  is  an  edu- 
cational one.  Even  the  subject  of  its  opium  produc- 
tioa  is  less  vital,  and  herein  the  position  of  the  govern- 
ment is  equally  indefensible.  There  are  multitudes  of 
Hindu  and  Mahometan  indigenous  schools.  Govern- 
ment spends  millions  of  dollars  annually  upon  its  ver- 
nacular, Anglo-vernacular  and  college  schools.  The 
elementary  work  is  very  much  neglected,  and  higher 
education  is  suffering  largely  from  rationalistic  and  anti- 
christian  instructors.  Says  Professor  Williams  :  "  The 
faculty  of  faith  is  wholly  destroyed  at  government  high 
schools  and  colleges."  A  Bengal  civilian,  even  without 
christian  motive,  testifies  "  Our  state  coUeo'es  are  content 
with  chaos."  Time  is  hastening  when  the  British  power 
must  abandon  its  neutrality,  and  return  to  its  promise 
in  1854  to  foster  mission  schools.  The  natives  will 
have  more  respect  for  a  christian  power  that  has  relig- 
ious decision.  English  neutrality  virtually  attacks  Hin- 
duism with  scepticism.  "  In  truth,"  as  Professor  Christ- 
lieb  says,  "no  policy  is  far-seeing  which  is  destitute  of 
character,  and  none  can  care  adequately  for  the  future 
of  a  people  that  is  without  the  imperial  idea,  the  firm 
belief  in  the  ever-enlarging  kingdom  of  God  and  the 
dependence  of  all  human  Avelfiire  on  its  progress." 
India  should  devote  more  of  her  educational  funds  to 
elementary  instruction,  carefully  avoid  the  substitution 
of  no-religion  for  the  false  systems  demolished  in  part 
by  science,  and  at  least  redeem  its  promise  to  mission 
schools. 


CONCENTRATION    OF    FORCES. 


321 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


CHKISTIAN  MISSIONS  IN  INDIA. 


N  this  vast  eastern  empire  of  Great  Britain , 
modern  Christian  Missions  have  had  their 
largest  development.  Here  have  been  the 
greatest  concentration  of  evangelistic  forces  ; 
the  most  numerous  body  of  foreign  mission- 
aries, unsurpassed  for  piety,  intelligence  and 
culture,  the  largest  outlay  from  the  contribu- 
tions of  Christendom,  and  the  most  enormous  aggrega- 
tion of  facilities  for  the  prosecution  of  mission  enter- 
prises. We  spent  four  months  of  hard  social  labor  in 
India,  including  its  eastern  extremity  of  Burmah ;  but 
the  proposed  delightful  task  of  becoming  personally  ac- 
quainted with  all  the  mission  forces  was  too  gigantic 
for  any  such  limited  period.  Nevertheless,  there  was 
opportunity  for  introduction  to  nearly  two-thirds  of  the 
six  hundred  and  eighty-nine  ordained  European  and 
American  missionaries,  and  of  the  four  hundred  and 
thirty  central  stations.  Of  these  laborers  two  hundred 
and  forty-four  are  from  England,  one  hundred  and 
thirty-one  from  Germany,  and  one  hundred  and  seven- 
teen from  America.  At  Calcutta  forty  missionaries  of 
the  various  societies  were  invited  to  meet  us  at  the 
American  Mission  Home  ;  and  there,  as  also  upon  sev- 
eral like  occasions  elsewhere,  many  glimpses  at  the  work- 
ers and  their  work  were  gratefully  secured,  that  would 
otherwise  have  been  impossible.  It  was  a  constant  exhil- 
aration to  move  among  so  large  a  number  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  thirty-five  Protestant  societies  engaged 
in  evangelizing  India.  Yet,  often  they  seemed  almost 
lost  in  the  vastness  of  the  population,  averaging  only  a 


322  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

little  over  two  missionaries  to  a  million  of  the  people. 
Nevertheless,  behind  them  are  many  times  their  number  of 
native  preachers,  teachers  and  catechists,  leading  on  the 
rank  and  file  of  half  a  million  of  Protestant  christians, 
against  especially  the  mighty  foe  of  Hinduism,  with  its 
one  hundred  and  seventy  millions  of  adherents. 

The  lamented  missionary  Sherring,  of  the  London 
Society,  whose  profitable  acquaintance  we  formed  at 
Benares,  the  ecclesiastical  capital  of  Hinduism,  divides 
the  work  of  modern  missions  in  India  into  two  periods. 
The  one,  reaching  down  to  1830,  includes  the  work 
especially  of  gathering  materials  for  future  use ;  the 
other,  chiefly  the  employment  of  those  materials.  This 
is  a  convenient  division,  although,  as  he  observes  in  his 
late  paper  before  the  Mildmay  Conference,  much  prepar- 
atory service  is  required  even  at  the  present  time,  and 
is  inseparable  from  all  new  station  w^ork.  The  converse 
also  is  true,  that  during  the  earlier  period  in  India  much 
actual  use  was  made  of  the  collected  materials  by  Carey 
and  his  companions  at  Serampore,  by  Ehenius  in  Tin- 
nevelly,  Mault  in  Travancore,  Duff  in  Calcutta,  Wilson 
in  Bombay,  and  other  eminently  practical  missionaries 
of  the  cross  throughout  the  vast  peninsula.  The  year 
1813  was  memoral3le  for  the  cause  of  evangelization  in 
India,  in  that  then  Parliament  interposed  in  behalf  of 
the  missionaries,  and  largely  removed  the  difficulties 
which  Carey,  Marshman,  Ward,  and  others  had  encoun- 
tered under  the  irresponsible  administration  of  the  East 
India  Company. 

It  was  a  lifelong  inspiration  to  visit  Serampore,  the 
scene  of  the  famous  labors  of  these  last  three  mentioned 
missionaries.  And  it  added  much  to  the  spiritual  ex- 
hilaration of  this  never-to-be-forgotten  day,  for  us  to 
have  as  our  host  and  guide.  General  A.  C.  Litchfield, 
the  American  Consul-General  to  India,  who  has  now  for 
many  years  in  Calcutta  endeavored  by  varied  humble 
and  self-sacrificing  services  to  prove  that  the  spirit  of 
those  Serampore  missionaries  still  lives  and  labors. 
We  have  seen  him  entertain  sailors  by  the  hundred  in 
his  home,  that  he  might  have  opportunity  to  pray  with 


AT   SERAMPORE.  323 

them  and  talk  to  them  of  Christ.  We  have  gone  with 
him  on  shipl)oard,  where,  with  one  of  the  missionary 
ladies  of  the  American  Home  to  play  his  portable  organ, 
he  seeks  to  carry  the  message  of  the  Gospel  to  the  sons 
of  the  sea,  who  will  not  come  to  his  home.  And  all 
this  he  has  now  kept  up  every  week  for  the  past  ten 
years,  at,  we  know,  a  constant  strain  of  great  personal 
sacrifice.  In  our  civil  war  he  sacrificed  upon  his  coun- 
try's altar  a  prosperous  lousiness  and  the  prospect  of 
large  wealth ;  and  now,  there  are  few  missionaries,  who 
are  giving  up  more  for  the  cause  of  Christ  in  foreign 
lands.  The  small  salary  allowed  by  the  American  gov- 
ernment does  not  enable  him  to  sustain  his  family  there 
upon  the  scale  demanded  by  his  official  associates  ;  and 
so  he  is  there  alone,  held  to  his  post,  not  by  its  great 
honor,  not  hy  its  salary,  but  by  a  large  variety  of  mis- 
sionary responsibilities,  which  have  accumulated  upon 
him  during  his  residence  in  Calcutta.  The  foreign  mis- 
sion cause  needs  such  laymen  at  all  its  stations.  They 
have  special  opportunities  and  facilities  for  commending 
Christianity  to  the  unbelieving  and  idolatrous  masses 
around  them.  We  remember  another  at  Yokohama, 
another  at  Kol)e,  another  at  ^laulmain,  another  at  Bas- 
sein,  and  still  others,  who,  notwithstandino^  their  secular 

'  7  7  Q 

employments,  are  as  full  of  the  missionary  spirit  as  any 
under  reguLir  appointment.  And  when  the  great  day 
of  harA^est  reckoning  shall  come,  their  names  will  ap- 
pear high  upon  the  honored  roll  of  those  who  have 
lived  and  labored  for  the  cause  of  foreign  evangelization. 
The  great  Serampore  buildings,  erected  at  such  vast 
expense  and  personal  sacrifice,  remain  ;  but  the  school  is 
languishing.  Lack  of  home  support,  and  conflicting 
views  between  the  home  authorities  and  the  partially 
independent  missionaries,  have  conspired  to  the  present 
lamentable  situation.  For  the  sake  of  hallowed  memo- 
ries, it  is  to  1)e  devoutly  hoped  that  present  efforts  will 
succeed  in  restoring  the  educational  institution  to  its 
former  prosperity.  The  location  is  admiral:)le  ;  only  a 
few  miles  from  Calcutta,  just  across  the  Hoogly  from 
the  Viceroy's  summer  palace.     The  most  serious  em- 


324  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

barrassment  is  the  erection  of  a  closely  adjoining  man- 
ufacturing establishment ;  but  generous  grants  could 
easily  remove  this  anno3'ance.  At  any  rate,  this  insti- 
tution is  not  the  only  monument  of  the  labors  of  those 
pioneer  missionaries,  who  were  compelled  to  take  refuge 
here  under  the  then  Danish  Hag.  Their  work  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  great  India  national  system  of  educa- 
tion. Their  example  was  followed  and  their  advice  was 
sought  by  the  general  government.  In  a  little  cemetery 
not  far  away  we  lingered  beside  their  graves,  and 
thought  of  their  marvellous  toils  and  sacrifices.  With 
government  salaries  each  of  six  thousand  dollars  per 
annum  for  many  years,  they  kept  back  from  their  varied 
benevolences  but  four  dollars  per  month  for  each 
member  of  their  home  circles,  thus  contributing  over 
three  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  their  mission  work. 
Experience  has  taught  that  such  extreme  economy  in 
living  is  not  wise,  as  also  that  secular  employment  and 
the  consequent  missionary  independence  of  home  sup- 
port are  not  conducive  to  the  most  successful  evangeli- 
zation ;  and,  yet,  there  are  lessons  from  Serampore 
which  many  missionaries  do  well  to  ponder.  At  the 
risk  of  incurring  the  censure  of  some  of  those  whose 
hospitality  we  have  enjoyed,  and  therefore  against 
wiiose  views  of  mission  housekeeping  economies  we  may 
seem  barred  from  taking  any  exception,  we  repeat  there 
are  some  lessons  from  Serampore  worth  pondering. 
The  past  three  generations  of  missionaries  gathered  up 
some  wisdom  on  the  living  question,  deserving  the  spe- 
cial consideration  of  their  successors. 

The  home  churches  do  not  ask  their  missionaries  to 
starve  themselves  down  to  four  dollars  each  person  a 
month.  They  do  not  require  an}^  such  close  figuring, 
as  in  the  case  of  a  good  brother  and  sister  I  met  in  the 
interior  of  China,  who  use  only  one  quarter  of  their  sal- 
ary for  their  own  living  expenses — three  hundred  dol- 
lars a  year, — and  direct  the  treasury  to  remit  the  other 
three-fourths  to  their  children  in  America,  that  they 
may  be  entirely  independent  of  all  benevolences  for 
their  educatiou.     But  there  is  a  growing  demand  for 


BOTH    SIDES    OF    SALARY    QUESTION.  325 

more  consideration  on  the  part  especially  of  that  large 
proportion  of  the  missionary  ranks,  which  in  the  matter 
of  a  mere  living  are  doing  quite  as  well  as  is  very  evi- 
dent they  could  do  in  the  christian  ministry  at  home. 
Twelve  hundred  dollars  and  a  house,  say  fifteen  hun- 
dred dollars  a  year,  with  perquisites,  is  twice  the  average 
income  of  ministers  at  home,  and  of  the  home  mission- 
aries scattered  through  destitute  parts  of  our  own  coun- 
try. True,  it  costs  more  to  live  as  our  mission- 
aries should  live  in  heathen  lands  than  in  Amer- 
ica, but  never  double,  as  I  can  testify  from  considerable 
experience  in  hiring  a])artments  and  in  purchasing 
food  and  clothing  in  a  majority  of  the  countries  of  the 
world.  There  are  other  and  great  sacrifices,  which  for- 
eign missionaries  cannot  avoid,  the  long  far-off  separa- 
tions from  kindred,  banishment  in  part  from  congenial 
christian  and  civilized  associations,  and  generally  the 
substitution  of  a  far  less  comfortable,  healthy  and  brac- 
ing climate  than  that  left  l)ehind.  This  the  home  churches 
can  appreciate,  but  there  is  a  prevailing  judgment  that 
in  the  simple  matter  of  a  living  the  majority  of  these 
missionaries  are  being  dealt  with,  as  they  should  be, 
generously.  It  is  true  that  occasional  travellers,  accept- 
ing their  hospitalities  for  a  day,  are  liable  to  remain 
totally  ignorant  of  the  customary  culinary  sacrifices  of  a 
foreign  mission  home.  But  on  the  other  hand  it  is  also 
true,  that  missionaries,  supported  during  their  two  years' 
vacations  at  average  ministers'  salaries  from  the  treasury, 
and  gladly  welcomed  and  feasted  at  all  our  best  homes, 
and  with  the  best  we  can  provide  at  whatever  sacrifice 
after  their  departure,  they  also  are  liable  to  over-esti- 
mate the  living  indulgences  of  the  vast  majority  in 
christian  lands.  )  Let  thei-e  l)e  no  discouraging  young 
people  enlisting  in  foreign  mission  work  on  the  score 
of  an  inadequate  support  in  regard  to  their  own  living 
expenses.  The  prevailing  judgment  of  the  home 
churches  is  that  they  should  fare  at  least  as  well  as  the 
average  of  their  own  ministry.  The  uniformity  of  sal- 
aries will  require  many  of  our  first-class  men  and  wom- 
en to  live  lives  of  sacrifice  in  reo^ard  to  home  comforts 


326  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

also ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  many  of  equal  piety  but 
less  capacity  for  getting  on  in  the  world  will  be  favored 
by  the  arrangement.  (  In  all  departments  of  life  there 
are  those  who  will  i)e  emlxarrassed,  no  matter  how  large 
their  income.  The  cause  of  missions  suffers  from  their 
improvidence.  Generosity  to  the  many  calls  upon  a 
missionary's  benevolence  does  not  excuse  him  for  deny- 
ing himself  and  family  the  necessary  food  and  comforts 
of  home.  Let  the  letters  to  the  friends  at  home,  and 
the  addresses  and  conversations  of  returned  missionaries, 
be  very  considerate  on  the  salary  question.  The  spirit 
of  the  churches  is  to  treat  foreign  missions  more  gener- 
ously than  home  missions,  and  they  want  it  recognized. 
There  are  no  rights  to  be  demanded.  A  home  mission- 
ary, living  with  his  family  on  four  hundred  or  live  hun- 
dred dollars  a  year,  hundreds  of  miles  in  the  interior  of 
one  of  our  territories,  may  talk  of  rights  ;  but  not  a  for- 
eign missionary  with  three  times  the  salary  in  India  or 
China.  No,  there  is  a  romance  in  foreign  missions  yet. 
Christianity  is  not  in  a  mood  to  place  heathen  evangeli- 
zation upon  strictest  business  principles.  The  service 
is  not  hired  but  given.  Gratitude  expresses  itself  in 
generous  gifts.  My  father,  a  clergyman,  who  brought 
up  a  family  of  six  children  and  largely  educated  them  on 
a  salary  of  eight  hundred  dollars,  taught  us  all  to  give 
especiall}^  to  foreign  missions.  Thousands  of  our  home 
ministers  and  laity,  like  circumstanced,  will  do  the 
same,  but  their  hearts  require  appreciation  and  grati- 
tude. 

The  situation  in  India  in  1830  was  very  encouraging. 
Nine  missionary  societies  were  at  work  in  the  country. 
Twenty-seven  thousand  Protestant  native  christians  had 
been  enrolled,  including  those  of  Ceylon  and  Burmah. 
With  the  aggressive  activity  now  manifested  in  the  use 
of  the  missionary  materials  which  had  been  collected, 
the  following  ten  years  saw  this  number  more  than 
doubled.  The  same  was  true  of  the  succeeding  decade. 
In  1861  the  christian  community  of  India  numbered 
two  hundred  and  thirteen  thousand  three  hundred  and 
seventy;  in  1871  three  hundred  and  eighteen  thousand 


NUMERICAL    AND    OTHER    RESULTS.  '327 

three  hundred  and  sixty -three  ;  and  at  present  there  are 
at  least  half  a  million,  with  over  one  hundred  and  twen- 
ty-five thousand  of  them  in  communion.  These  results 
represent  some  of  the  most  heroic  mission  w^ork  in  the 
world,  such  as  that  of  the  London  Society  in  Vizagapa- 
tam  for  thirty  years  Avithout  a  single  convert,  that  of  the 
American  Baptists  at  Nellore  for  twenty-one  years  with 
but  twenty-three  converts,  that  of  the  two  missions  at 
Cuddapah  for  thirty  years  with  only  two  hundred  con- 
verts ;  and  that  of  the  six  German  missionaries  among 
the  Kolhs  of  Chota  Nagpore  for  five  years  without  one 
conversion,  during  which  four  of  these  brave  christian 
soldiers  fell  at  their  post.  Episcopalians  cannot  forget 
that  the  Church  mission,  after  twenty  years  in  Masuli- 
patam  and  vicinity,  numbered  only  two  hundred  and 
fifty-nine  adherents.  When  I  crossed  the  Kistna  a 
little  above,  it  was  with  grateful  heart  that  I  observed 
how  richly  God  is  honoring  such  fidelity  and  patient 
waiting,  as  likewise  a  few  miles  beyond  to  the  south,  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Guntur,  where  the  mission  of  the 
American  German  Lutherans,  after  about  the  same 
twenty  years,  numbered  but  three  hundred  and  thirty- 
eight  converts.  We  need  frequently  to  recur  to  these 
old  heroic  records,  to  realize  the  rapidity  with  which 
the  mission  cause  thus  started  is  moving  forward  at  the 
present  time.  It  has  been  calculated  that  at  the  rate 
which  has  now  held  good  since  1830,  there  Avill  be  one 
hundred  and  thirty-eight  millions  of  Protestant  chris- 
tians, with  thirty-four  and  a  half  millions  of  communi- 
cants, by  the  commencement  of  another  century,  in 
India. 

Other  results  are  apparent  quite  as  important  as  these 
numerical  ingatherings.  The  dormant  conscience  of  the 
people  has  been  aroused.  A  general  quickening  of 
thought  has  been  experienced.  An  almost  universal 
unrest  has  been  created,  and  vast  multitudes  are  aban- 
doning their  idolatries  and  superstitions.  Said  Mt. 
Sherring  at  the  Mildmay  Conference:  "The  moral 
growth  of  the  nation  and  the  radical  changes  for  the 
better  which  are  taking  place  in  native  society  ^through- 


328  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

out  the  length  and  breadth  of  India,  and  which  even  our 
enemies  recognize,  are,  as  evidences  of  improvement 
and  progress,  verities  from  which  no  appeal  is  possible." 
I  met  constant  evidences  of  deep  and  wide-spread  intel- 
lectual ferment  among  both  Hindu  and  Moslem  pojDU- 
lations.  Western  scholarship  has  been  opening  to 
Eastern  research  the  long  closed  avenues  to  the  old 
Aryan  sources  of  religious  faith.  Hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  educated  Hindus  are  examining  for  themselves 
into  the  far  purer  principles  of  Vedic  philosophy.  They 
realize  that  they  have  drifted  far  away  from  even  the 
imperfect  theism  and  anthropology  of  their  own  ances- 
try. And  they  are  discovering  fatal  weaknesses  in  their 
traditional  foundations.  The  Brahmo  Somaj  is  a  symp- 
tom of  this  intellectual  ferment. 

Of  the  almost  universal  unrest  among  the  masses  of 
India,  which  we  have  noted,  and  which  gives  great 
encourag-ement  to  further  evans^elizino:  labor  amono- 
them,  secretary  Jenkins,  of  the  English  Wesley  an 
Society,  testifies  :  "  The  people  who  do  not  think  are 
disturbed  by  those  who  do.  There  is  an  impression 
that  every  active  power  in  their  midst,  or  which  threat- 
ens presently  to  be  in  their  midst,  is  forcing  upon  all 
India  a  change  of  faith ;  that  Hinduism  cannot  be 
pressed  into  the  progress  of  modern  life  ;  that  in  the 
light  of  science  idols  cannot  continue  to  be  the  objects 
of  national  reverence,  and  the  inspiration  of  national 
morality ;  that  in  an  age  when  the  pre-eminent  force 
is  intellectual,  and  the  doctrine  of  abstract  social 
equality  is  nearly  indisputable,  caste,  as  the  Hindus 
understand  and  enforce  it,  is  an  anachronism.  The  peo- 
ple see  that  these  things  are  going,  and  they  do  not  see 
what  will  take  their  place." 

Though  not  yet  to  the  same  extent,  there  is  a  coitc- 

sponding  agitation  of  thought  and  religious  disquietude 

.,among  the  fifty  millions  of  Mahometans  in  India.     The 

political  bands  of  Islamism  are  being   severed,  and  the 

faith  of  multitudes  in  the  Koran  is  beino- shaken.  When 

o 

the  Sultan  of  Turkey  has  lost  his  temporal  power,  then 
the  lingering  political  hopes  of  India's  Moslem  popula- 


TINNEVELLY  AND  TRAVANCORE.         329 

tions  will  largely  vamsh,  and  there  will  be  a  fair  encoun- 
ter with  no  uncertain  issue  between  the  principles  of  the 
Cross  and  the  Crescent.  Already  a  goodly  numl)er  of 
them,  sufficient  to  prove  the  power  of  the  Gospel,  have 
been  converted,  especially  in  the  Punjaub.  And  a  visit 
to  the  Church  Mission  Divinity  School  at  Lahore  shows 
that  they  are  beginning  to  furnish  themselves  with  a 
native  ministry. 

It  is  interesting  to  trace  the  development  of  mission 
work  under  each  of  the  societies  operating  in  India : 
thus  of  the  English  Church  mission,  whose  work,  even 
as  that  of  the  Propagation  Society,  may  be  said  to  have 
begun  with  the  missionary  zeal  of  Chaplain  Henry 
Martyn.  His  labors  in  India,  from  1806  to  1811,  were 
the  seed-sowino'  of  a  s^reat  harvest  of  evano^elizino"  actiA  - 
ity  ;  and  when  in  the  vicinity  of  Serampore,  we  eagerl}^ 
sought  out  the  little  pagoda  Avhich  was  the  study  of 
this  pioneer  missionary.  Agra  was  the  first  station  for- 
mally occupied  by  the  C.  M.  S.,  and  that  in  1813.  Now 
it  has  sevent3^-four  principal  stations  in  India,  with  over 
one  hundred  missionaries,  nearly  two  thousand  assistants, 
and  one  hundred  thousand  christian  adherents.  Their 
labors  have  been  especially  blessed  in  the  districts  of 
Tinnevelly  and  Travancore.  In  the  former  this  mission 
has  over  fifty  thousand  adherents,  scattered  among  seven 
hundred  and  seventv  villao-es,  amono-  which  the  native 
pastorate  has  been  developed  as  in  no  other  field  of  the 
mission  world.  Their  work  in  Travancore  is  specially 
interesting,  since  largely  among  the  descendants  of  the 
ancient  Syrian  Church.  The  eftbrt  at  first  was  to  reform 
the  venerable  ecclesiastical  community,  but  it  was  a 
failure.  Even  now  the  greater  success  attends  labors 
for  the  surrounding  heathen.  This  mission  has  here 
twenty  thousand  adherents,  belonging  to  the  Malay alim 
part  of  the  ancient  kingdom.  The  other,  or  Tamil  por- 
tion, contains  forty  thousand  under  superintendence  of 
the  London  mission.  Ellore  and  Bezwada,  which  I 
visited,  are  stations  of  the  C.  M.  S.  among  the  Telugus. 
Evidently  the  work  here  is  being  blessed,  yet  not  so 
much,  we  felt,  as  if  less  deference  to  caste  prejudices  was 


330  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

paid.  In  the  neighboring  city  of  Masulipatam,  Rev.  R. 
Noble  long  stood  at  his  post  as  head  of  a  high  caste 
school,  never  returning  to  his  home  for  twenty-four 
years,  and  at  his  death  his  theory  was  in  part  justified 
by  the  fact  that  his  six  christian  bearers  were  an  Eng- 
lishman and  (had  ])een  respectively)  a  Brahman,  a  Vel- 
lama,  a  Sudra,  a  Pariah,  and  a  ^Mussulman. 

The  other  English  Church  mission,  that  of  the  Prop- 
agation Society,  numl^ers  in  India  over  50,000  adherents. 
Notwithstanding  its  aristocratic  bearing  toward  other 
Societies,  and  its  often  quite  exasperating  habit  of  ig- 
noring the  many  times  more  of  eA^angelizing  service 
performed  under  other  auspices,  its  work  is  evidently 
being  largely  l)lessed.  Although  the  temper  of  the 
Propagation  Society  is  not  yet  up  to  the  mark  of  adopt- 
ing such  a  rule  as  the  thirty-first  of  its  sister  organization, 
the  Church  Mission  Society,  — requiring  that  "A  friendly 
intercourse  shall  be  maintained  with  other  Protestant 
Societies  eno-ao-ed  in  the  same  benevolent  desigrn  of 
propagating  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ," — the  mission- 
aries and  friends  of  the  other  missions  should  resist  the 
temptation  to  undervalue  the  services  of  the  S.  P.  G. 
in  India  and  elsewhere.  '  Its  missionaries  number 
to-day  593,  and  during  the  180  years  of  its  history 
this  society  has  expended  twenty-five  millions  of 
dollars.  Especially  should  Americans  not  forget  their 
debt  of  obligation  to  this  society,  for  from  1702  to  1783 
its  principal  sphere  of  operations  was  in  our  land ;  and 
largely  from  the  seed  thus  sown  has  sprung  up  Ameri- 
can Episcopalianism,  numbering  1,000,000  souls  under 
the  pastoral  care  of  62  Bishops  and  3,000  other  clergy. 
S.  P.  G.  mission  work  in  India  has  heen  especially 
blessed  in  Tinnevelly  and  Chota  Nagpore.  In  the  for- 
mer district  the  accessions  since  1877  have  been  over 
20,000  ;  and  the  gospel  is  being  preached  regularly  to- 
day in  631  of  its  villages.  In  the  latter  district,  a  pro- 
vince of  the  Bengal  Presidency,  among  the  aboriginal 
tribes  of  the  Kolhs,  this  society  has  enrolled  10,000 
converts,  the  large  proportion  of  whom  however  were 
transferred  from  the  German  Gossner  Mission. 


ENGLISH   AND   SCOTCH    SOCIETIES.  331 

Of  the  other  English  missions,  the  London  Society 
has  50,000  native  adherents,  with  45  ordained  mission- 
aries. Only  4,500  are  communicants,  showing  special 
and  commendable  care  in  regard  to  encouragement  to 
full  membership.  The  richest  blessings  seem  to  rest 
upon  the  lal  )ors  of  this  society  in  Travancore .  Its  late  estab- 
lishment of  public  lecture  courses  in  English  upon  relig- 
ious topics  at  Bangalore  is  sure  to  effect  important 
results.  The  Wesleyans  support  nearly  100  missionaries 
in  India,  including  Ceylon.  They  enroll  upAvards  of 
4,000  members  among  20,000  adherents.  Many  of 
their  schools,  particularly  in  the  Mysore  district,  are  in 
a  very  prosperous  condition.  The  English  Baptist 
Society  carries  on  its  most  important  mission  in  India. 
It  sustains  39  missionaries,  whose  adherents  number  not 
tar  from  20,000.  The  report  at  present  from  many 
portions  of  their  field  is  of  increasing  vitality  and  inde- 
pendence on  the  part  of  the  native  churches.  In  many 
places  the  women  have  adopted  the  custom  of  setting- 
aside  for  church  expenses  a  handful  of  rice  at  every 
daily  meal.  Their  missionary  Rouse,  whom  we  met 
in  Calcutta,  has  lately  published  a  "Life  of  Carey, 
Marshman,  and  Ward,"  in  Bengali,  which  promises  to  be 
of  great  service  to  the  cause. 

Fifty  years  ago  Scotland  began  to  be  stirred  in  the 
cause  of  foreign  missions  by  Drs.  Chalmers,  Inglis  and 
Duff.  Lono-  before,  as  far  back  as  1560,  John  Knox 
had  promised  that  the  Reformed  Kirk  would  ''preche 
this  glaid  tydingis  of  the  Kyngdome  through  the  haill 
warld  ; "  but  not  till  1830  was  Dr.  Duff,  its  first  mission- 
ary, enabled  to  begin  his  celebrated  educational  work 
in  Calcutta.  It  l)ecame  the  centre  of  many  mission 
stations,  extending  to  the  Santal  uplands,  and  the  instru- 
mentality of  gathering  a  goodly  numl:»er  of  noble  con- 
verts from  among  the  Brahmans  and  Hindus  of  all  castes. 
It  cannot,  however,  be  denied  that  the  actual  evangeliz- 
ing results  of  the  vast  education  enterprise  of  the  Scotch 
mission  have  fallen  far  below  the  expectations  of  its 
founders.  A  similar  work  to  that  at  the  India  capital 
was  inaugurated  in  Bombay  and  Poona  by  Dr.  Wilson 


332  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

and  his  associates,  and  its  oversight  was  transferred  to 
the  Scottish  society  in  1835.  We  were  pleased  to  meet 
their  useful  convert  from  the  Parsees,  Rev.  Dhunjee- 
bhoy  Nourojee,  and  their  other  from  the  educated 
Brahmans,  Rev.  Narayan  Sheshadri.  From  this  centre 
of  mission  activity  other  denominations  at  home  Avere 
induced  to  enter  upon  neigh])oring  work  ;  particularly 
the  Irish  Presbyterian  Church  in  Gujerat  and  Northern 
Bombay,  and  the  United  Presbyterian  Church  in  Raj- 
pootana.  Two  years  after,  under  Rev.  Anderson  and 
his  associates,  the  Madras  educational  institution  was 
founded.  It  has  become  a  great  power  and  is  deserving 
of  its  present  beautiful  buildings.  The  disruption  of 
1843  threw  great  financial  loads  upon  the  Free  portion 
of  the  Scottish  Church,  but  under  the  stimulating  appeals 
of  Drs.  Duff  and  Wilson  the  needed  sacrifices  were 
made,  and  the  whole  Christian  world  received  a  benedic- 
tion. Immediately  the  Free  Church  Society  occupied 
a  new  mission  at  Nagpore  in  Central  India,  under  Rev. 
Hislop,  worthy  to  be  ranked  with  the  other  founders. 
To-day  the  one  centre  of  1830  at  Calcutta  has  grown  to 
31  stations,  with  40  missionaries  and  208  assistants. 
Their  adherents,  including  those  of  all  the  other  Pres- 
byterian missions,  number  at  present  10,000. 

The  five  Lutheran  societies  operating  in  India,  the 
Leipzig,  the  Gossner,  the  Danish,  the  Hermannsburg, 
and  the  American,  have  forty-two  thousand  adherents. 
Some  of  these,  as  also  the  American  Baptist  mission, 
have  lately  gathered  largely  from  the  results  of  christian 
relief  among  the  late  terrible  famine  sufferers.  Accord- 
ing to  the  London  "  Times,"  there  perished  on  account 
of  this  famine  in  the  Presidency  of  Madras  3,000,000 
of  persons;  in  Mvsore  1,250,000:  and  in  the  Bombay 
Presidency  1,000^000.  A  relief  fund  of  $4,000,000 
was  sent  from  England  ;  and  public  work  on  a  large 
scale,  such  as  the  Buckingham  Canal,  was  furnished  to 
the  destitute  poor.  Such  philanthropy  was  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  selfishness  and  indifference  of  the 
heathen  priesthood  and  laity.  Multitudes  were  im- 
pressed by  it.     Christian  truth,  with  which  they  had 


ONGOLE  AND  THE  TELUGUS.  333 

been  made  fomiliar  through  the  preaching  of  many  mis- 
sionaries, and  the  instruction  of  many  christian  teachers, 
and  the  circuhition  of  a  vast  amount  of  Gospel  litera- 
ture, now  germinated,  and  a  large  and  genuine  spiritual 
harvest  has  resulted.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  idols 
were  thrown  away  as  useless.  Inquirers  thronged  the 
mission  stations,  especially  after  the  famine  had  passed, 
and  the  sincerity  of  their  motives  could  not  be  denied. 
They  were  not  "  rice  christians,"  like  those  multitudes 
of  Buddhists  in  Ceylon  who  so  deceived  the  Dutch  mis- 
sionaries. The  large  majority  of  them  were  undoubt- 
edly honest  seekers  after  the  light  and  power  of  the 
true  God.  Repeatedly  they  said :  "  We  can  under- 
stand christians  giving  s^aiipathy  and  help  to  their  fel- 
low-christians  in  time  of  need,  but  it  is  indeed  wonderful 
that  they  should  show  such  great  and  noble  compassion 
to  the  heathen.  There  must,  indeed,  be  a  mighty  power 
in  their  religion  !"  Under  these  quickening  influences, 
the  American  Baptists  have  increased  their  numbers 
six- fold  during  the  last  three  years,  having  among  the 
Telugus  to-day  20,000  communicants,  and  80,000 
adherents. 

During  my  visit  to  Ongole,  two  hundred  miles  north 
of  Madras,  I  was  greatly  strengthened  in  confidence 
that  these  marvellous  ingatherings  have  been  of  the 
Lord.  Twenty-eight  years  ago,  Dr.  Jewett,  a  mission- 
ary from  Nellore,  still  living  at  Madras,  and  in  the 
service  of  the  American  Baptist  Society,  was  touring 
in  this  densely  populated  region.  Upon  the  summit  of 
a  mountain,  near  Ongole,  he  prayed  that  God  would 
send  a  missionary  there.  For  thirteen  years  that  prayer 
remained  unanswered,  largely  dou])tless  because  of  the 
delinquencies  of  home  ministers  and  churches.  But 
God  had  not  forgotten  it,  and  v»^ith  Mr.  Clough,  the 
missionary  sent,  it  was  my  privilege  to  kneel  upon  the 
summit  of  that  same  mountain,  and  thank  God  that  He 
had  answered  that  prayer,  and  added  blessings  which 
have  thrilled  all  Christendom  with  amazement  and  grati- 
tude. I  was  present  at  the  examination  of  a  number  of 
these  late  Telugu  converts,  w^hen  they  presented  them- 


334  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

selves  as  candidates  for  church  membership,  and  I  can 
candidly  testify  that  they  passed  the  ordeal  full}^  as 
satisfactorily  as  the  average  at  home.  In  their  great 
congregation,  and  in  private  conversations  through  my 
interpreter  ;  in  their  theological  seminary  at  Kamapatam 
with  its  two  hundred  students,  and  in  many  little  meet- 
ings, scattered  along  my  four  hundred  miles'  interior 
tour  of  Telugu  land,  from  Coconada  to  Madras,  I 
prayerfully  studied  the  character  of  the  great  harvest- 
work  that  is  still  going  on,  and  all  the  while  the  convic- 
tion strengthened  that  the  work  was  divine,  and  there- 
fore genuine. 

An  early  episode  in  this  Ongole  mission  has  bearing 
upon  an  important  question  for  all  India.  When  Mr. 
Clough  came  to  this  new  station,  he  was  at  once  waited 
upon  by  citizens  of  the  higher  castes,  who  expressed 
their  gratitude  at  his  arrival,  and  promised  him  every 
needed  support.  They  were  true  to  their  word, 
immediately  placing  under  his  instruction  sixty-tAvo  of 
their  sons,  and  furnishing  all  funds  required  to  carry  on 
his  school  enterprise.  No  restrictions  were  placed  upon 
his  religious  teaching,  and  his  heart  was  full  of  rejoicing 
at  the  large  doors  of  usefulness  opened  before  him. 
Other  missions  had  established  high  caste  schools  in 
other  parts  of  India,  which  had  been  well  attended ; 
but  never  had  he  heard  of  such  a  spontaneous  cordial 
demand  for  christian  education  coming  from  the  highest 
ranks  of  native  society.  Thus  most  encouragingly 
the  months  passed  on.  But  one  day  unexpectedly  three 
men  of  low  caste  presented  themselves  as  converts. 
The  missionary's  welcome  sent  a  chill  through  the  school 
and  the  aristocratic  community.  An  indignant  com- 
mittee waited  upon  him  immediately  with  the  threat  of 
Avithdrawing  all  support,  if  he  had  anything  more  to  do 
with  Sudras  and  Pariahs.  After  a  few  weeks  two  more 
of  a  low  caste  professed  conversion.  The  crisis  had 
come.  Mr.  Clough  went  to  his  stud}^  for  prayer  and 
thought ;  and  for  the  same  purpose  his  wife  retired  to 
her  own  room.  "O  God,"  was  his  tearful  supplica- 
tion,  "  direct   us   in   this   extremity  of  our  mission ! " 


god's  way  of  building.  335 

Upon  his  table  were  a  few  Testaments,  sent  by  the 
British  and  Foreisfn  Bible  Society  for  distribution  amono^ 
the  Eurasians.  He  took  up  one  of  them,  and  it  opened 
of  its  own  accord  to  the  first  chapter  of  first  Corinth- 
ians,  and  he  read  :  "Ye  see  your  calling,  brethren,  how 
that  not  many  wise  men  after  the  flesh,  not  many 
mighty,  not  many  noble,  are  called ;  but  God  hath 
chosen  the  foolish  things  of  the  world,  to  confound  the 
wise ;  and  God  hath  chosen  the  weak  things  of  the 
world  to  confound  the  things  which  are  mighty ;  and 
base  things  of  the  world,  and  things  which  are  despised, 
hath  God  chosen,  yea,  and  things  which  are  not,  to 
brinof  to  nouaht  thino-s  that  are  ;  that  no  flesh  should 
glory  in  his  presence."  "Ah!  yes,  I  see  it,"  he  said; 
"I  have  not  been  building  on  God's  plan.  It  must 
tumble  down,  and  I  must  begin  anew."  During  the 
same  moments  in  the  adjoining  room,  his  wife  rose  from 
prayer,  and,  taking  up  one  of  those  same  Testaments 
from  a  little  pile  also  upon  her  stand,  it  likewise  opened 
of  its  own  accord,  and  for  the  first  time  probably  since  it 
left  the  bindery,  to  the  same  first  chapter  of  first  Corinth- 
ians. And,  as  soon  as  she  read  those  same  verses,  she 
rushed  into  the  study  to  show  them  to  her  husband. 
"But  did  you  not  know  that  I  had  l^een  reading  them?" 
he  inquired.  "No,  indeed."  And  thus  their  way  was 
made  clear  by  this  most  striking  coincidence.  Plainly 
God  meant  them  to  build  upward  from  humble  begin- 
ings,  not  downward  from  the  rich,  and  learned,  and 
proud.  The  next  morning  their  obedient  purpose  was 
announced,  and  every  scholar  left,  and  all  the  support  of 
the  upper  classes  at  once  changed  into  bitter  hostility 
against  them  and  their  mission.  But  there,  as  all  the 
Christian  world  knows,  God  has  since  most  signally 
honored  work  done  according  to  his  plan.  And  among 
the  eight}^  thousand  christian  adherents,  including 
twenty  thousand  communicants,  there  have  been  more 
upper  caste  conversions  than  could  have  been  expected 
under  the  previous  exclusive  method  of  labor. 

Did  not  God  thus  speak,  as  again  from  the  INIount,  to 
all  his  people  Israel  engaged  in  India  evangelization? 


336  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

In  nearly  every  part  of  the  land  I  was  impressed  by  an 
over-deference  to  the  caste  system,  on  the  part  particu- 
larly of  the  educational  work  of  the  various  missions. 
Not  only  are  there  many  distinctively  high  caste  schools, 
but  the  practical  arrangement  in  multitudes  of  others  is 
calculated  to  favor  the  native  aristocracy.  It  is  a  weak 
point  in  the  otherwise  largely  admirable  plan  of  the 
zenana  mission  enterprise.  All  honor  to  Miss  Hook 
and  her  noble  band  of  co-lal)orers  in  Calcutta  and  vicin- 
ity, as  also  to  jMiss  Lathrop  and  her  assistants  in  zenana 
work  at  Allahal)ad.  They  are  carrying  the  Gospel  to 
women  and  children  in  many  homes  otherwise  inaccessi- 
ble. Theirs  is  not  the  almost  constant  encouragement 
of  other  missionaries,  of  seeing  the  fruits  of  their 
labors  gathered  into  visible  churches,  but  many  gleams 
of  sunshine  cross  their  pathway  amid  their  secluded 
toils.  And  often  they  know  rays  of  heaven's  own  light 
beam  forth  responsively  from  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
the  little  groups  they  have  sought  out  in  the  harems  of 
the  proud  Hindus.  Nevertheless  it  is  a  deference  to  the 
caste  system,  which  will  not  allow  that  promiscuous  in- 
struction in  accord  with  the  genius  of  Christianity.  At 
present  this  is  not  enough  to  discourage  zenana  effort 
among  the  secluded  high-caste  families,  but  it  should 
encourage  special  fidelity  to  the  Bible  teaching,  that  in 
religion  all  are  equal  before  God.  Greatly  is  it  to  be 
desired  that  as  rapidly  as  possible  every  encouragement 
to  the  Hindu  caste  system,  which  is  the  great  support 
of  its  idolatry,  should  ])e  removed  from  the  plans  and 
operations  of  the  various  missions.  And,  from  a  gen- 
eral survey  of  the  field,  it  does  seem  evident  that,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  absence  of  this  deference,  the  largest 
spiritual  blessings  acconipany  the  lal^ors  of  God's  serv- 
ants. Much  can  be  said  on  the  side  of  carrying  the 
blessings  of  the  Gospel  to  the  upper  classes,  and  of 
making  concessions  to  accomplish  this  object ;  but  it 
should  be  remembered  that  such  considerations  are  those 
to  which  the  heart  of  man  naturall}'  inclines  ;  and,  Avhen 
Christ's  life  and  the  history  of  missions  are  studied,  the 
true  way,  the  way  of  divine  architecture  in  the  building 


CONGREGATIONALIST   AND   METHODIST    SCHOOLS.     337 

of  the  spiritual  temple,  would  seem  to  be,  first  in  the 
dirt  and  darkness,  and  afterward  aloft  with  the  glitter 
and  display ;  first  down  where  much  of  the  ground  we 
work  is  trodden  under  the  feet  of  society,  and  afterward 
amid  the  pinnacles  and  towers  of  human  life. 

Both  the  American  Congregationalists  and  Methodists 
are  doing  largely  successful  mission  work  in  India. 
The  former  have  over  1,200  church  members  among 
the  Mahrattas,  2,500  in  Madura,  and  nearly  1,000  in 
Ceylon,  or  in  all  some  24,000  adherents.  We  can  never 
forget  the  Parks  of  Bombay,  as  also  the  Humes  of  that 
city  and  of  Ahmednuggur.  Their  varied  w^ork  is  faith- 
ful, intelligent,  and  successful.  The  following  is  the 
course  of  study  at  the  Ahmednuggur  Theological  Semi- 
nary :  ''First  Year. —  Exegesis.  —  Genesis  and  part  of 
Exodus,  Avith  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament; 
Matthew  and  Acts,  with  Introduction  to  the  New  Testa- 
tament.  Natural  Theology.  —  Evidences  of  Christian- 
ity. Outlines  of  History  (English  and  Marathi). — 
Old  Testament  History,  with  Biblical  Geography.  As- 
tronomy, Logic,  Rhetoric  (English  only).  Practical 
HomileticsJ  including  weekly  rhetorical  exercises,  fre- 
quent preaching,  the  care  of  a  particular  district  of  the 
city,  and  keeping  church  records.  (This  to  be  con- 
tinued through  the  whole  course.)  Sanskrit  Quotations, 
Music,  Medical  Lectures  (through  the  course  as  may  be 
practicable).  Second  Year,  —  Exegesis. — Leviticus 
or  Daniel,  Romans.  Systematic  Theology  (English 
books).  Church  History  (English  books).  Natural 
Philosophy.  Practical  Homiletics  (As  in  the  first 
year).  Third  Year.  —  Exegesis. — Psalms,  Pastoral 
Epistles.  Systematic  Theology.  —  Especially  Contro- 
versial Theology,  Hinduism,  Mahometanism,  Deism, 
and  Materialism  (English  l)ooks).  Church  History. 
—  Especially  Missions  and  Revivals.  Homiletics. — 
Sermons.  Pastoral  and  Evangelistic  work.  Hindu 
Philosophy."  This  I  have  found  to  be  a  fair  sample  of 
the  courses  of  instruction  at  the  many  theological  semi- 
naries, which  at  many  mission  stations  throughout  the 
heathen  world  to-day  are  seeking  to  train  up  an  efficient 


338  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

native  Christian  ministry.  Evidently  they  deserve  gen- 
eral confidence  and  generous  support.  With  the  Meth- 
odist Theological  Seminary  at  Bareilly,  imder  the  able 
missionaries  Thomas  and  Scott,  I  Avas  especially  pleased. 
This  society  supports  in  North  India  6Q  missionaries 
and  foreign  assistants,  and  has  nearly  3,000  church 
members,  or  12,000  adherents.  In  South  India  its  36 
missionaries  are  almost  entirely  supported  on  their  fields 
of  labor.  They  have  nearly  10,000  adherents,  with 
2,000  communicants.  The  Methodist  press  establish- 
ment at  LucknoAv^  appeared  to  me  remarkably  enter- 
prising and  useful  to  the  cause.  American  Presbyterian 
missions  in  India  have  four  centres,  Lodiana,  Furrakha- 
bad  and  Kolapoor,  sustain  30  ordained  missionaries, 
with  48  American  assistants,  and  number  nearly  4,000 
adherents,  with  1,000  communicants.  The  foreign 
mission  society  of  the  Friends,  or  Quakers,  has  four 
missionaries  in  the  laro:e  district  of  Hoshans^obat.  The 
Swedish  Fosterland  Institute  sustains  four  mission- 
aries in  Marsingpore  and  Sagar,  and  two  among 
the  Ghonds.  The  Free  Baptists  have  eight  mission 
stations  in  Orissa,  with  17  male  and  female  mission- 
aries, and  nearly  600  communicants.  The  Moravians 
have  two  stations,  with  34  native  christians,  in  the 
Western  Himalaya  on  the  borders  of  Tibet.  The 
American  United  Presbyterian  Church  is  supporting  ex- 
tensive mission  work  in  the  Punjaub.  Its  six  ordained 
missionaries,  with  their  wives  and  assistants,  are  very 
much  encouraged  in  their  labors  among  these  interesting 
three  millions  of  population.  Their  central  stations  are 
at  Sealkote,  Gujranwala,  Gurdaspur,  and  Jhelum.  The 
celebrated  Sikhs  of  the  Punjaub  are  deists,  holding 
a  middle  ground  between  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism, 
and  are  followers  of  Naneka,  who  flourished  toward 
the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century. 


ADEQUACY    OF    SUPPLY.  339 


CHAPTER  XX. 

MISSIONARY  OUTLOOK  IN  INDIA. 

ARGE  as  is  the  missionary  force  in  India,  it 
is  still  very  inadequate.  What  would  be 
adequate  is  an  important  question,  though 
we  fear  it  will  not  be  pressingly  practical 
until  the  present  generation  at  least  has 
M'S/^  passed  to  its  final  account.  E^xry  great 
centre  of  popuhition  should  have  at  least 
six  married  male  missionaries  and  two  unmarried  female 
assistants.  Two  of  the  male  missionaries  should  have 
general  pastoral  (.'are  of  the  itinerating  work  ;  one  should 
be  a  physician,  another  a  teacher,  and  still  another  a 
printer.  As  a  rule  these  should  all  l)e  married.  jNIore- 
over,  another  should  always  be  held  ready  as  a  substitute 
in  vacation  and  death.  The  unmarried  women  mission- 
aries need  each  other's  companionship,  and  can  do  an 
important  Avork  none  others  can  do  in  the  schoolroom 
and  in  the  homes  of  the  natives.  This  is  needful  to 
adequately  supply  every  great  centre  of  heathen 
population.  Such  a  centre  we  would  reckon  as  the 
commercial  focus  of  every  half  million  of  people.  We 
would  say  every  million,  if  throughout  Asia,  Africa 
and  elsewhere  in  heathendom  the  facilities  for  travel 
were  equal  to  those  in  Christendom.  Surely  it  would 
not  be  too  much  to  ask  for  Massachusetts,  if  it  was 
pagan  territory  and  deprived  of  most  of  its  railroads 
and  j)uT)lic  highways,  that  it  should  have  four  of  these 
mission  stations,  or  the  two  which  would  be  equivalent 
with  its  present  travelling  facilities. 

This  is  not  reckoning  wildly,  but  within  reasonable 
and  practicable  limits.     The   demand  of  the  field  thus 


340  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

stated  is  not  beyond  the  present  resouree?  of  the 
Christian  Church.  It  means  one  twelfth  as  many  mis- 
sionaries as  ministers,  and  an  average  contribution  of 
one  dollar  and  fifty  cents  per  member  for  their  support 
and  the  prosecution  of  their  evangelizing  enterprises. 
It  would  give  to  India's  two  hundred  and  fifty-two  and  a 
half  millions  of  po})ulation  three  thousand  missionaries, 
or  four  and  a  half  times  the  present  number  ;  to  Burmah 
by  itself,  with  its  eight  millions,  all  included,  ninety- 
six  missionaries,  three  times  the  force  of  to-day. 
This  estimate  of  adequacy  would  supply  to  the  one 
thousand  millions  of  the  heathen  world  twelve  thou- 
sand missionaries,  or,  including  wives  and  single  women, 
twenty-eight  thousand.  America's  fair  proportion  at 
present  of  this  adequate  supply  would  l^e  a  little  over 
one  third,  or  ten  thousand  missionary  laborers,  which 
would  be  one  missionary,  or  wife,  or  unmarried  female 
assistant  from  each  one  thousand  adult  members  of  the 
evangelical  Protestant  churches  of  the  American  Union. 
This  is  not  too  great  a  call  to-day  upon  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  our  privileged  Christianity.  The  financial 
cost  to  Protestant  Christendom  would  be  $28,000,000 
annually,  at  the  average  of  one  thousand  dollars  total 
yearly  support  of  each  missionary  laborer.  Fifty  per 
cent,  however,  must  be  added  for  travelling  expenses, 
buildings,  printing  materials,  collection  agencies,  and 
other  incidentals,  making  America's  proportion  fifteen 
millions  of  dollars  annually,  or  one  dollar  and  fifty 
cents  for  each  adult  member. 

IVe  ha^^e  seen  that  the  Protestant  Christian  Church  of 
these  United  States  is  spending  at  present  eighty-five 
millions  of  dollars  every  year  upon  the  support  of  its 
ministry,  the  building  and  repairing  of  its  sanctuaries, 
the  development  of  its  educational  enterprises,  and 
upon  other  varieties  of  labor  which  cluster  innnediately 
around  home  interests.  This  is  a  vast  amount,  but 
evidently  it  does  not  impoverish  the  Zion  of  our  God. 
Nor,  in  addition,  would  the  foreign  mission  claims  of 
the  whole  world  lead  to  any  financial  disaster.  Indeed, 
if  the  mission    demands   of  the  destitute  parts   of  the 


THE    CHILDREN    OF   MISSIONARIES.  341 

home  field  be  considered  equal  to  those  of  foreign 
evangelization,  then  all  that  universal  missions  ask  at 
our  hands  is  one-third  as  much  as  we  spend  upon  our- 
selves. In  the  midst  of  our  luxurious  religious 
privileges  this  is  by  no  means  a  preposterous  measure 
of  benevolence  to  consider.  Thirty  millions  of  dollars 
is  a  lars^e  amount  of  money,  but  it  is  only  one-fortieth 
of  America's  annual  liquor  bill.  Almost  every  week 
our  population  consumes  as  much  upon  intoxicating 
drink.  Verily,  it  is  practical)le,  and  what  an  enlarge- 
ment of  spiritual  power  it  would  guarantee,  for  every 
christian  church  throughout  our  land  to  say  :  We  will 
spend  one  dollar  for  missions  for  every  two  dollars  Ave 
spend  upon  ourselves.  This  within  five  years,  if  the 
example  was  followed  in  other  Protestant  lands,  would 
adequately  furnish  the  entire  world  with  missionary 
laborers. 

Here  in  India,  especially,  we  have  occasion  to  recur 
to  the  missionary  children  question.  AYhat  is  to  be 
done  with  them  ?  It  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  prob- 
lems which  our  christian  laborers  in  foreign  fields,  who 
are  parents,  have  to  encounter.  Many  of  their  constit- 
uency in  home  lands,  and  a  still  larger  numl^er  whose 
contributions  have  not  yet  enrolled  them  .in  this  honored 
number,  often  consider,  or  at  least  talk  much  upon 
the  subject  of — what  is  to  be  done  with  missionaries' 
children?  Roman  Catholics  solve  the  difficulty  by 
insisting  that  missionaries  never  should  have  any 
children.  Their  priests  are  never  allowed  to  marry, 
and  their  various  orders  of  sisterhood  are  compelled  to 
take  the  vows  of  celibacy.  These  missionary  laborers 
are  never  troubled  with  infancy  and  childhood  in  their 
dreary  homes.  They  lose  no  night's  sleep  with  the 
sicknesses  which  so  multiply  with  the  little  ones  in  most 
of  the  far-away  heathen  lands.  The}^  are  never  hin- 
dered by  parental  responsibilities  from  itinerating  in  the 
surroundiniT  districts,  or  from  o^oino-  off"  for  weeks  and 
months  upon  tours  to  distant  regions.  They  never 
have  to  dread  the  immoral  influences  around  upon  their 
own  young  and  impressible  ofispring,.  nor  to  watch  the 


342  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

wilting  effect  of  the  climate  upon  the  physical  and  men- 
tal, yes,  and  moral  constitution  also  of  youth  dearer  to 
them  than  life,  nor  to  break  their  hearts  in  sending  them 
home  to  be  reared  among  strangers.  Roman  Catholics  do 
not  have  to  return,  often  years  before  they  would  other- 
wise, for  the  sake  of  their  families.  They  do  not  have 
to  divide,  as  Protestants  so  frequently,  mothers  staying 
behind  for  years,  while  the  fathers  return  to  their  dis- 
tracted work.  They  do  not  have -the  extra  expense  of 
so  many  more  mouths  to  feed,  so  many  more  bodies  to 
clothe  and  shelter,  so  many  more  for  whom  to  pay  the 
enormous  travelling  bills.  Nevertheless,  we  believe  in 
missionaries'  children,  and  in  as  large  a  number  of  them 
as  God  seems  willing  to  give.  We  believe  in  them  as 
second  only  to  the  missionaries  themselves  in  their 
enlightening  influence  upon  the  surrounding  darkness 
of  heathenism.  They  are  needed  to  give  the  christian 
home  its  fulness  of  benediction. 

But  it  is  commonly  said  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
that  the  children  of  missionaries  be  sent  home  early  — 
very  early,  for  the  sake  of  their  physical,  mental  and 
moral  education.  This  is  true  as  a  rule,  but  with  many 
exceptions.  I  have  elsewhere  emphasized  the  rule,  and 
dwelt  upon  some  of  the  practical  questions  growing  out 
of  it.  Here  for  a  moment  profitably  the  other  side  of 
the  problem  may  be  considered.  We  met  in  Lucknow, 
India,  a  missionary  mother,  almost  down  sick  with  dis- 
couragement because  all  her  plans  had  failed  of  sending 
her  little  children  to  America,  and  of  finding  there  for 
them  homes  and  school  opportunities.  But  in  the 
neighboring  city  of  Benares  Ave  became  pleasantly 
acquainted  with  our  English  hosts.  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Lazarus,  to  whom  business  has  brought  wealth,  and  who 
are  successfully  rearing  a  large  family  of  children  amid 
the  orreatest  physical  and  moral  discouragements  to  be 
found  in  all  the  heathen  world.  Several  years  ago  I 
saw  a  missionary  family  from  India  broken  up  in  heroic 
obedience  to  the  supposed  exceptionless  law,  and  years 
have  proved  that  those  children,  left  behind,  did  not 
gain  enough  to  compensate  for  the  loss  of  immediate 


NEED    OF    MORE    FRATERNIZATION.  343 

parental  guardianship.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
recall  again  the  seven  children  of  the  Gulick  family, 
who  until  maturity  were  retained  by  their  parents  amid 
the  influences  of  the  then  heathen  Sandwich  Islands, 
and  are  all  to-day  efficient  missionaries  of  the  American 
Board  and  Bible  Society,  in  Spain  and  Asia,  save  one 
self-supporting.  We  ourselves  lost  —  no,  not  lost  — 
one  naturally  strong  and  healthy  child  in  America, 
but  took  another  of  a  very  delicate  constitution  to  Asia, 
where  a  year  established  him  in  health.  And  it  w^as 
among  Asiatic  influences  that  his  christian  principles 
seemed  to  gather  up  and  crystalHze.  Yes,  missionaries 
and  their  friends  need  to  remember  that  dear  children 
weaken,  sicken  and  die  in  the  home  lands  as  well  as  on 
foreign  soil ;  that  immoral  and  worldly  influences 
around  the  paths  of  youth  exist  in  America  also,  not 
quite  so  gross  and  glaring,  but  perhaps  as  powerful,  be- 
cause of  their  reflnement  and  subtlety  and  modest 
veiling.  May  God  open  many  christian  homes  in 
christian  lands  for  the  children  of  foreign  missionaries  ! 
May  home-like  institutions  be  established,  especially 
for  those  whose  parents  die  on  the  field  of  heathen  toil. 
But  let  not  missionary  parents  consider  the  destiny  of 
their  little  ones  fixed  as  inevitably  as  fate.  As  they  en- 
circle them  with  loving  arms,  let  them  not  feel  that  they 
are  also  in  the  embrace  of  an  iron  law  that  has  no  excep- 
tions. Let  the  providence  of  God  be  studied  in  each 
several  case  without  fear.  Abundantly  has  the  good 
Lord,  over  all,  shown  that  His  shepherd  arms  can  carry 
along  the  lambs  in  Asia  and  Africa  as  safely  as  in  Eng- 
land and  America. 

A  vast  deal  of  foundation  work  has  been  accomplished 
in  India;  but  now,  as  quite  generally  labor  upon  the 
superstructure  has  been  reached,  there  is  increased  need 
of  missionary  fraternization.  Above  ground  the  lines 
of  masonry  in  the  temple  of  evangelical  Christianity  re- 
quire to  be  blended  into  much  more  perfect  symmetry 
of  design.  The  interesting  and  profitable  conference 
lately  at  Bangalore,  the  Mysore  capital  and  sanitarium 
for    Southern   India,  attended   hy  all   the    church    and 


344  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

denomination  varieties  of  missionaries,  was  a  very  hope- 
ful evangelizing  sign  of  the  times  in  the  great  peninsula. 
It  is  even  the  more  gratifying  than  the  Shanghai  con- 
ference, for  the  India  evangelizing  forces  seem  the  most 
disintegrated  of  any  mission  field.  On  account  of 
climatic  influences,  of  church  aristocracy  tendencies,  and 
of  the  lack  in  many  sections  of  the  American  element, 
there  appear  more  in  India  than  elsewhere  of  divergent 
views  as  to  the  true  principles  and  methods  of  mission- 
ary labor,  more  even  of  clashing  interests  and  of  the 
spirit  of  antagonism. 

The  greatest  need  of  Christian  Missions  in  India  to- 
day is  spiritual  power.  There  is  an  immense  amount 
of  machinery,  strong,  complicated,  and  of  beautiful 
design,  but,  except  at  the  south,  it  moves  sluggishly; 
at  many  points  there  is  hardly  any  perceptible  move- 
ment. The  picture  is  before  me  of  an  engine  I  saw 
subsequently  upon  the  right  bank  of  the  Tigris,  below 
Baghdad.  It  was  of  very  perfect  construction,  and 
there  was  evidently  vast  need  upon  the  adjoining 
Mesopotamian  Shinar  plain  of  the  irrigating  services  for 
which  it  was  designed.  But  it  had  no  power,  and  the 
custodians  seemed  not  to  understand  the  secret  of  its 
use.  This  appeared  to  me  true  of  half  the  mission 
stations  I  visited  in  India.  Particularly  throughout  the 
north  there  was  seldom  to  be  seen  that  wrestling  of 
spirit  for  the  Divine  indwelling,  that  we  had  frequently 
met  in  China  and  Japan.  In  one  of  the  missions  of 
Fuchow,  at  the  time  of  our  visit,  all  the  missionaries 
had  been  devoting  the  evenings  of  the  preceding  week 
to  united  prayer,  simply  for  power  from  above  upon 
their  labors.  It  was  evident  they  Avere  receiving  the 
desires  of  their  hearts.  Never  shall  I  forget  a  prayer- 
meeting  in  Yokohama,  the  tears  that  were  shed,  the 
groanings  which  could  not  be  uttered. 

In  ancient  times  a  favorite'  method  in  the  capture  of 
walled  cities  was  simply  to  build  towers  for  assault 
higher  than  the  walls  of  the  enemy.  The  evident 
advantage  thus  secured  woul!  often  luring  compliance  to 
the  demand  for  surrender,  A\iLhout  the  hurlino:  of  one 


IMPEESSIVE    HOLY   LIVING.  345 

stone,  or  the  shooting  of  one  arrow.  Many  of  the 
mission  station  towers  over  against  the  enemy  in  India 
are  not  high  enough  for  irresistibly  impressive  purposes. 
The  missionaries  are  true  christians,  far  above  the 
average,  and  self-saerificingl}'  consecrated  to  their  work. 
But  many  of  them  are  not  where  they  shoukl  l)e  for  the 
most  eftective  service.  There  is  too  much  deference  to 
worldly  social  demands.  Too  many  are  listening  to  the 
siren  song  of  intellectual  ambition.  There  is  too  much 
manoeuvring  for,  and  reliance  upon  government  support. 
So  frequent  is  the  communication  with  Europe,  that 
India  missionaries  are  especially  diverted  by  the  politics 
of  home,  and  are  more  taxed  than  others  by  corre- 
spondence. They  do  more  general  visiting  with  travellers 
than  those  stationed  in  any  other  heathen  land.  These 
influences  have  their  efiect.  Christian  character  is 
impressible  among  missionaries  as  well  as  among  the 
ministry  and  lait}^  at  home.  This  should  awaken  the 
solicitude,  and  enlist  the  prayers  of  all  interested  in 
world  evangelization.  The  Church  Universal  needs  to 
earnestly  pray,  and  that  continually,  for  a  large  measure 
of  supporting  grace  upon  its  missionaries,  that  they  may 
be  kept  from  their  surrounding  worldly  influences,  and 
that  l^efore  the  great  walls  of  idolatry  and  superstition, 
they  have  gone  forth  in  the  name  of  the  Divine  ^Master 
to  overthrow,  they  may  present  the  highest  attainments 
of  christian  character,  the  most  impressive  illustrations 
of  holy  living,  of  unselfish  motive,  of  heavenward 
desire. 

Evangelization  in  India  is  reaching  the  upper  classes. 
There  has  not  hitherto  been  success  enouo'h  amonof  high 
caste  people  to  unduly  elate  foreign  missions.  It  is  to 
be  devoutly  hoped  that  the  lesson  of  humility  has  been 
sufficiently  learned,  for  there  are  various  indications 
that  the  power  of  christian  convictions  is  being  very 
largely  felt  an^ong  those  ranks  in  society,  which  have 
hitherto  held  aloof  from  intercourse  with  the  missions. 
There  is  growing  dissatisfoction  with  mere  secular  train- 
ing, a  reaction  from  the  newly  reviewed  wisdom  of  the 
past,  and  a  dawning  appreciation  of  the  secret  of  the 


346  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

superiority  of  Christian  nations.  While  this  is  in  part, 
doubtless,  the  result  of  the  extensive  school  enterprise 
in  India,  inaugurated  by  missions  and  carried  out  in  a 
measure  by  the  government,  it  is  chiefly,  we  are  con- 
vinced, the  incidental  efiect  of  largel}^  successful  evan- 
gelizing labors  among  the  lower  classes.  At  Coconada  I 
richly  enjo^^ed  an  acquaintance  with  a  converted  Brah- 
man. At  Lucknow  I  heard  another  one  deliver  an 
address  to  university  students  upon  the  character  of 
Christianity,  so  satisfactory  that  I  secured  a  copy  for 
publication.  At  Bombay  we  were  privileged  to  dine 
with  a  converted  Brahman  and  wife,  whose  hospitality 
w^as  ornamented  with  all  the  charms  of  a  christian  home. 
Over  his  change  of  faith  his  parents  had  burnt  the  funeral 
pile,  and  every  agony  had  been  manifested  at  his  viola- 
tion of  caste ;  nevertheless  the  Gospel  has  proved  the 
power  of  God  unto  his  salvation,  and  the  benediction 
of  his  home  recalled  that  of  Professor  Xeesima  at  Kiyoto, 
eTapan.  These  are  droppings  of  the  plentiful  shower  that 
is  gathering.  The  pride  and  culture  of  India  are  rapidly 
preparing  to  bend  lowly  at  the  feet  of  Jesus. 

Xo  where  more  than  in  India  does  it  need  to  be  re- 
affirmed, that  the  primary  object  of  all  missions  is  the 
evangelization  of  the  people.  No  doubt  all  these  six 
hundred  and  eighty-nine  missionaries  would  conscien- 
tiously affirm  that  this  is  the  grand  aim  of  their  lives  of 
toil  and  sacrifice.  But  an  ultimate  good  may  be  made 
so  remote  as  to  bring  it  ])racticall3'  into  a  very  subordi- 
nate place.  A  tree  is  to  be  judged  by  its  fruit,  causes 
by  their  effects.  And  at  many  of  the  mission  stations 
in  India  by  far  the  most  apparent  results  are  secular  and 
not  religious,  scientific  attainments  instead  of  the  con- 
victing and  converting  triumphs  of  Grace.  When  a 
mission  school  takes  fifty  young  men  and  educates  them 
in  the  modern  sciences,  and  all  Imt  two  or  three  of  them 
graduate  infidels  and  scoffers  alike  at  their  old  heathen- 
ism and  the  new  Christianity,  it  is  very  questionable 
whether  the  evil  is  counterbalanced  by  the  incidental 
conversion  of  the  small  minority.  One  soul  saved  is 
indeed  worth  more  than  the  whole  physical  universe,  but 


EVANGELIZATION   THE    PRIMARY   OBJECT.  347 

may  not  pay  the  cost  of  scores  of  young  men  armed  with 
thorough  mental  training  and  high  scientific  attainments 
to  resist  the  advance  of  the  Redeemer's  cause.  Science, 
indeed,  is  truth  ;  and  all  truth  finds  its  home  in  the  heart 
and  mind  of  Christ.  But  the  most  serious  conflicts  of 
to-day  are  those  in  which  the  enemies  of  Christianity 
handle  the  weapons  of  truths  or  half  truths.  It  is  not 
the  question  whether  all  this  emphasis  upon  education, 
made  by  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  missions  in  India, 
results  in  a  few  conversions.  Certainly  it  does.  Baboo 
Ran  Chundar  Bose,  to  whose  lecture  before  the  govern- 
ment university  students  at  the  Methodist  Mission  chapel 
in  Lucknow,  I  listened  with  such  interest,  is  a  trophy 
of  Grace,  won  through  the  Duff"  college  in  Calcutta.  But 
I  have  seen  graduates  of  that  same  school,  as  also  of  the 
London  and  of  the  English  Church  missions,  officiating 
at  the  most  abominal)le  altars  of  Hinduism.  I  met  one 
at  Kali  Ghat,  and  shamelessly  he  affirmed,  that  "the 
religion  of  Jesus  answered  very  well  for  college  specu- 
lations, but  now  he  had  come  out  into  life,  and  must 
earn  his  bread."  With  another  I  became  acquainted  in 
Madras,  who  could  speak  twelve  languages,  but  said 
he  :  ''  There  is  nothing  in  the  Avorld  so  detestable  to  me 
as  Christianity."  The  question  is  that  of  a  comparison 
and  balancing  of  results  „  The  legitimate  sphere  of  the 
missionary  teacher  is  where  his  labor  will  contribute  the 
most  to  the  cause  of  evangelization.  "In  our  opinion," 
says  Professor  Christlieb,  "it  is  making  too  great  de- 
mand on  the  missionary  exchequer  at  home,  w^hen  money 
is  asked  from  it  for  the  support  of  purely  scientific  in- 
stitutes, where  the  missionary  has  to  act  as  professor  of 
philosophy  and  mathematics,  etc.  Several  English  so- 
cieties possess  institutes  of  this  kind,  as  in  Calcutta  and 
]\Iadras,  but  a  convert  almost  never  comes  forth  from 
them,  because,  amidst  the  mass  of  scientific  subjects, 
instruction  in  Christianity  is  pushed  into  the  background. 
Jf  secular  science  cannot  and  ought  not  to  be  excluded 
from  a  course  of  education,  still  the  chief  aim  of  mission 
schools  should  be,  not  the  propagation  of  such  knowl- 
edge, but  that  of  the  kingdom  of  God;  not  to  train 


348  CHEISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

young  men  to  be  government  officials,  but  to  become 
active  church  members,  teachers,  and  pastors.  Mis- 
sionary interests^  as  such,  do  not  extend  beyond  this. 
Nor  should  it  be  forgotten,  that,  when  the  catechetical 
school  in  Alexandria  became  through  time  a  purely 
scientific  institute,  it  ceased  to  flourish." 

It  is  in  part  very  pleasant  to  see  the  India  govern- 
ment patronizing  mission  schools  as  the  proved  nurseries 
of  loyalty.  It  is  cause  indeed  for  devout  thanksgiving, 
that  the  day  has  passed  so  evidently,  Avhen  missionary 
activity  is  to  be  discouraged  on  the  plea  of  public 
insecurity.  But  there  still  is  a  measure  of  suppression 
under  the  secular  power  of  India,  as  real  as  when  Carey 
was  driven  to  Seram]wre,  and  Judson  to  Burmah. 
Conditions  to  "grants-in-aid"  more  and  more  destruc- 
tive to  the  proper  work  of  christian  foreign  missions 
are  l)eing  imposed.  War  debts  accumulate,  as  fright- 
fully during  the  late  Afghanistan  campaigns.  Expenses 
must  be  cut  down.  Government,  which  did  not  hesitate 
to  misappropriate  two  million  pounds  sterling  from  the 
famine  relief  fund,  and  to  levy  income  tax  upon  the 
missionaries,  in  its  emergency,  has  not  been  slow  to 
economize  in  the  line  of  its  educational  responsibilities, 
and  b}^  the  makeshift  of  tempting  missions  to  do  the 
work  at  one-third  the  cost.  AVe  have  met  quite  a 
numl)er  of  missionaries,  so  indignant  at  official  inter- 
ferences, that  they  refuse  the  "grants-in-aid,"  and  prefer 
to  plod  along  at  their  own  legitimate  work  with  more 
limited  resources.  I  cannot  appreciate  the  refusal  of 
government  funds  on  the  principle  itself,  unless  the 
thoroughly  consistent  position  of  entire  independence  be 
taken  by  the  mission  station,  and  the  full  share  of  the 
taxes  be  paid  upon  all  mission  projoerty.  But  the 
tendency  to  official  interference  should  be  resisted. 
That  apparently  the  grand  aim  of  many  mission  schools 
in  India  is  to  be  ready  on  appointed  days  to  please  an 
examiner,  who  holds  the  key  to  the  royal  treasury,  and 
who  is  more  than  likely  to  be  a  skeptic  and  a  libertme, 
is  very  deplorable. 

No  act  is  being  more  severel}^  censured  in  our  day 


TRUST   FUNDS    AND    "  GRANT-IN-AID."  349 

than  any  breach  of  trust.  Whenever  money  has  been 
given  to  an  ol)J3ct,  to  that  object  it  must  go  ;  and  the 
public  conscience  execrates  the  hands  by  which  any 
part  of  it  is  diverted  from  its  own  proper  channel. 
However  worthy  be  the  cause  to  which  trust  funds  are 
misappropriated,  the  act  remains  essentially  the  same, 
inexcusable  and  criminal.  Now,  the  large  proportion 
of  the  money  raised  for  foreign  missions  is  for  the 
distinctly  stated  purpose  of  sending  the  Gospel  to  the 
heathen  world.  The  day  lal)orer  contributes  his  dollar, 
and  the  poor  widow  casts  into  the  treasury  her  two 
mites,  with  the  sole  purpose  of  helping  to  make  chris- 
tians out  of  pagans.  Direct  evangelization  is  the 
touchstone  to  their  benevolence.  Most  sacredly  should 
the  trust  be  guarded.  Better  carry  such  limited  con- 
tri})ution  in  the  shape  of  a  Testament  or  tract  to  some 
mud  hut  upon  the  bank  of  the  Ganges,  than  Avith  it  to 
put  a  tile  on  the  roof  of  a  palace  in  Calcutta,  erected  by 
mission  funds,  but  pre-empted  by  a  conscienceless 
government  for  the  cause  of  mere  secular  education, 
and  depending  for  its  very  life  upon  the  continuance  of 
official  support,  whose  professed  aim  is  to  treat  christians 
and  heathen  alike. 

But  are  not  government  "grants-in-aid,"'  even  when 
without  interference  distributed  to  the  mission  schools, 
themselves  a  ])reach  of  trust  to  the  heathen  population 
which  pays  almost  all  the  taxes?  They  would  be,  if 
the  government  of  India  was  a  representative  govern- 
ment of  the  people  of  India.  Rather  it  represents 
Christian  England,  which  has  conquered  this  vast 
peninsula,  and  Avhich  is  accountable  to  its  God  and  the 
christian  conscience  of  the  world,  for  the  faithful  discharge 
of  the  enormous  trust.  As  the  Bonn  professor,  just 
quoted,  observes  ;  "  When  statesmen  re})eatedl3'  inquire, 
'Are  we  at  liberty  to  take  the  mone}^  of  the  natives  of 
India,  to  undermine  their  own  religion  ?  ' —  Ave  ansAver, 
The  people  of  India  are  noAV  entrusted  to  a  christian 
government,  Avhich  must  in  every  Avay  promote  their 
Avelfare.  If  the  government  have  the  honest  conviction, 
that  this  is  done  in  the  best  and  most  lasting  manner,  by 


350  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

means  of  the  blessings  of  the  Gospel,  then  it  is  their 
duty  —  however  little  understood  hy  the  present  gener- 
ation—  with  regard  to  the  future,  to  grant  free  access 
to  these  blessings,  and,  though  of  course  without 
compulsion,  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  extinction  of  the 
old  religions." 

Neutrality  on  the  part  of  the  British  power  in  India 
is  impossil)le  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  Between  English 
civilization  and  Hinduism,  there  is  essential  and  deadly 
antagonism,  and  the  weaker  must  go  to  the  wall.  Faith 
in  the  Shastres  is  doomed,  not  one  of  every  hundred 
educated  Hindus  believing  in  them  to-day.  British 
influence  in  India  is  inevitably  undermining  the  old 
idolatries  and  superstitions.  It  cannot  avoid  these 
consequences  by  any  attempted  neutrality.  The  only 
alternative  left  the  government  is  to  foster  infidelity,  or 
to  encourage  Christianity.  It  must  contribute  to  the 
deprivation  of  all  faith,  — a  cruelty  to  the  people  and  a 
peril  to  itself,  —  or  it  must  frankly,  generously,  and  w^ith- 
out  officiousness,  cherish  christian  missions.  Well 
remarked  Rev.  J.  Johnson,  of  the  Free  Church  of 
Scotland,  before  the  last  Mildmay  Conference,  — 
referring  to  government  instruction  at  present  in  India, 
— "  To  train  young  men  thus  is  as  dangerous  as  it  is 
cruel.  Under  the  law  of  Moses,  the  rich  man  was 
denounced  who  took  the  rags  from  the  poor  man,  which 
covered  him  from  the  cold  of  night.  What  shall  be 
said  of  us,  if  we  take  from  the  youth  of  India  their  only 
shelter  from  the  cold  blasts  of  unbelief  and  scepticism  ? 
It  is  cruel  of  us  to  take  the  husks  of  false  religion  from 
the  starving  heathen,  and  refuse  them  the  bread  which 
we  have  in  such  rich  abundance  to  give  ;  to  leave  them 
at  a  time  Avhen  the  character  is  being  formed  for  good  or 
evil,  in  a  dreary  void  without  a  prop  for  the  soul  to  lean 
on,  or  a  ray  of  light  to  guide  them  through  the  gloom. 
To  do  this  is  as  dangerous  to  the  State  as  it  is  perilous 
to  the  soul." 

The  great  and  growing  demand  for  a  christian  litera- 
ture is  far  from  being  supplied  in  India.  Not  only 
are  multitudes  being  educated,  but  their  new  literary 


THE    CONFLICT   IN   LITERATURE.  351 

cravings  are  being  met  hy  vast  quantities  of  vile  native 
productions,  and  by  enormous  translations  from  Euro- 
pean skepticism,  rationalism  and  materialism.  Hegel, 
Strauss,  Renan,  and  even  Paine,  are  names  well  known 
throughout  India.  Multitudes  are 'familiar  with  Dar- 
win's development  theory,  with  Comte's  positivism, 
protoplasm,  and  with  the  vagaries  of  Huxley,  Tyn- 
dall,  Spencer,  Mill,  and  Emerson.  All  prominent 
attacks  made  upon  Christianity  in  Europe  are  translated 
and  largely  circulated  among  these  teeming  millions. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Bible  and  Religious  Tract  So- 
cieties, and  the  Christian  Yernacular  Education  Society, 
and  more  than  a  score  of  other  missionary  presses  are 
doino^  considerable  to  stem  the  tide  of  anti-christian 
literature.  But  neither  enough  money  nor  brains  are 
given  to  the  work.  Little,  comparatively,  is  accom- 
plished, and  much  of  this  little  is  of  a  transient  charac- 
ter, since,  for  various  reasons,  it  lacks  ability  to  meet 
the  intellectual  demands  of  India.  Man}"  missionaries 
have  been  too  hasty,  immediately  after  learning  the  lan- 
guage, to  commence  the  writing  of  Christian  apologetics. 
They  have  presumed  too  early  from  their  OAvn  schools 
to  cross  theological  swords  with  long  experienced  Hindu 
controversialists.  Consequently  their  work  is  of  lim- 
ited and  temporarj^  value.  Many  undertake  too  much. 
Even  the  celebrated  Serampore  triad  would  have  done 
better,  had  they  attempted  less.  Nowhere  in  all  the 
world  have  my  own  first  impressions  of  the  native  in- 
tellectual ability  proved  to  be  more  at  fault.  Their 
skin  is  dark,  l)ut  their  features  and  mental  powers  are 
kindred  to  our  own,  and  this  fact  of  ethnology  is  con- 
stantly appearing  upon  the  arena  of  Indian  thought. 

Industry  for  the  sake  of  a  living,  conducted  upon 
christian  principles,  is  proving  in  India  an  invaluable 
help  to  the  proclamation  of  the  Gospel.  During  the 
late  famine  in  the  South,  Mr.  Clough  of  the  Ongole 
mission  organized  and  superintended  his  people  in  the 
construction  of  several  miles  of  the  Buckingham  canal. 
The  fulfilment  of  the  contract  secured  oflScial  and  gen- 
eral commendation,  and  a  moral  influence  was  created, 


352  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

that  contributed  largely  to  the  subsequent  ingathering 
of  many  thousands  of  converts.  In  many  sections  of 
the  country  I  have  met  native  christians,  carrying  on 
business  consistently,  hallowing  the  Lord's  day,  strictly 
honest  in  their  transactions,  and  every  way  trustworthy  ; 
and  they  are  doing  much  along  such  lines  of  influence 
to  help  on  the  cause  of  evangelization.  So  many  con- 
verts are  thrown  out  of  their  livelihood  by  their  change 
of  religion  and  violation  of  caste,  and  so  impossible  is 
it  for  the  ordinary  missionary  to  give  them  the  needed 
attention,  that  it  would  be  well  for  pious  farmers  and 
mechanics  and  tradesmen  to  improve  the  opportunity 
of  setting  examples  and  superintending  industries  in 
their  own  line  among  these  poor  and"  perplexed  converts 
from  heathenism.  Rich  blessings  from  God  would  rest 
upon  manual  labor  consecrated  to  the  cause  of  Christ 
among  distressed  native  christians  in  foreign  lands. 

It  is  evidently  wise  to  construct,  especially  in  southern 
Asia,  good  permanent  mission  buildings.  Here  the 
elements  rage  with  the  most  destructive  fury.  I  have 
seen  many  ruins  of  mission  buildings,  because  put 
up  too  cheaply  and  poorly  to  withstand  the  fierce  winds 
and  rains  of  that  climate.  The"  ordinary  native  styles 
of  dwelling-houses  are  entirely  unfitted  to  the  neces- 
sary requirements  of  our  missionaries.  Then  it  is  poor 
economy  to  take  several  months  of  a  missionary's  time 
every  few  years  for  house  repairing  or  rebuilding.  I 
met  a  missionary,  who  had  been  required  by  his  society 
five  years  previously  to  reduce  his  estimates  five  hun- 
dred dollars ;  but  since  then  he  had  lost  to  his  legiti- 
mate and  valuable  evangelizing  work  at  least  ten  months 
in  repairing  roofs  and  walls,  which  but  for  the  retrench- 
ment would  have  been  unnecessary. 

Outside  the  central  stations  the  buildings  to  be  used 
by  the  natives  should  be  erected  by  the  natives  chiefly 
at  their  own  expense.  The  European  or  American 
missionary  should  have  in  connection  with  his  own 
society's  premises,  immediately  adjoining  or  in  the 
vicinity,  a  chapel  or  sanctuary  corresponding  in  cost 
and    comfort    to    the   mission    dwellings   and  school- 


CENTRAL  AND  OUT-STATION  CHAPELS.      353 

houses.  On  a  few  occasions  I  have  gone  from  well-built 
mission  homes  to  chapels,  the  best  at  the  station,  which 
were  not  fit  for  stables.  In  one  the  roof  leaked  so 
badly  I  had  to  hold  up  my  umbrella  the  whole  time 
during  service.  In  another,  not  two  hundred  feet  from 
a  $2,000  missionary  dwelling,  the  little  old  $500  chapel 
had  leaned  over  an  angle  of  fifteen  degrees,  and  was 
kept  from  falling  only  by  a  small  forest  of  bracing- 
poles.  Another  station  chapel  had  its  timl)ers  and  floors 
so  eaten  by  the  white  ants,  that  I  was  in  constant  fear 
at  least  of  broken  bones.  The  adjoining  dwelling  of 
the  missionary  cost  three  times  as  much,  and  Avas  in 
perfect  repair.  In  one  of  the  chief  cities  of  India,  near 
just  such  a  building  as  is  needed  for  the  home  of  the 
missionaries,  is  a  little  insignificant  affair,  which  I  took 
for  one  of  the  outhouses  of  the  establishment,  perhaps  a 
shed  for  garden  tools,  until  there  upon  the  following 
day  I  preached  to  the  native  congregation  through  an 
interpreter.  Now  such  harmful  contrasts  are  not 
agreeable  to  any  of  the  missionaries.  They  would  not 
permit  them  if  they  could  help  it.  Generally  they  are 
encouraged  to  go  forward  and  provide  themselves  with 
the  needed  mission  station  buildings,  and  by  the  time 
they  have  housed  themselves  remittances  stop.  Then 
they  have  to  manage  along  with  temporary  chapel  struc- 
tures, all  out  of  keeping  and  constantly  falsifying  their 
interest  in  the  worship  of  God.  But  while  every  central 
station  should  have  its  comfortable,  commodious  and 
beautiful  chapel,  the  chief  ornament  of  the  mission 
premises,  and  requiring  generally  to  be  built  with  mis- 
sion money,  it  is  asking  too  much  of  the  home  churches 
to  build  chapels  for  the  natives  at  the  out-stations. 
There,  as  a  rule,  it  is  best  to  throw  the  little  clusters 
of  disciples  entirely  upon  their  own  resources.  I  have 
been  in  little  mud  huts  with  thatched  roofs,  which  they 
have  themselves  built  for  divine  worship,  at  about  twice 
the  cost  of  their  own  ordinarj'  hovels,  and  it  Avas  evi- 
dently better  for  them  than  if  the  mission  had  erected 
them  a  building  at  a  thousand  dollars  expense. 

Some  of  the  mission  school  buildings  in  India  are  too 


354  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

luxurious.  If  it  were  desirable  to  Europeanize  or 
Americanize  the  natives  as  rapidly  as  possible,  then  they 
are  most  admirably  adapted  for  that  purpose.  But 
results  abundantly  prove  that  this  effect  the  missionaries 
need  carefully  and  constantly  to  avoid.  How  can  nine 
tenths  of  the  youth  from  the  christian  families  of  India 
spend  years  in  some  of  those  grand  school  palaces,  far 
better  than  the  average  of  our  own  colleges  and  semi- 
naries, and  then  return  with  any  measure  of  contentment 
to  their  own  mud  hovels,  where  there  are  no  chairs,  or 
tables,  or  bedsteads,  and  no  ornamentation  save  a  few 
daubs  of  whitewash  upon  the  dingy  walls  !  Not  that 
our  mission  school  archit<ecture  should  come  clear  down 
to  this  wretched  beastly  level,  for  there  are  corrections 
in  personal  habits  and  surroundings  that  should  at  once 
be  made  with  all  the  youth,  especially  of  the  poorer 
classes,  who  come  under  the  influence  of  the  missionary 
teacher.  Some  externals  should  be  placed  in  the  way  of 
improvement,  but  the  grand  mission  aim  is  the  internals. 
Missionaries  are  sent  not  to  denationalize,  ])ut  to  chris- 
tianize. Wisely  the  l)uilding  design  evidently,  in  a 
majority  of  the  mission  schools  of  India,  as  at  Bareilly, 
Nagpore,  Ongole,  Ahmednuggur,  Lahore  and  elsewhere, 
is  to  elevate  native  civilization  only  so  far  as  is  thoroughly 
practicable,  and  in  harmony  with  the  tastes  and  resources 
of  the  average  native  society. 

We  were  frequently  asked  by  the  missionaries  to 
listen  to  the  natives  sing  some  of  our  familiar  home 
tunes,  very  often  the  best  known  "Moody  and  Sankey 
hymns."  Indeed  there  is  a  great  power  in  song,  and  it 
is  gratifying  almost  everywhere  to  find  that  our  missions 
are  making  use  of  it  in  their  various  departments  of 
evangelization.  But  I  seriously  question  the  wisdom 
of  this  Europeanizing  and  Americanizing  of  native  song. 
Every  people  upon  the  globe  have  their  own  musical 
vernacular,  even  as  their  own  ordinary  language  of 
social  intercourse.  Doubtless  either  the  English  or  the 
German  type  of  sacred  song  is  superior  to  our  American, 
but  we  are  not  going  to  generally  substitute  the  grand 
and  stately  music  from  beyond  the  waters,  for  we  are 


THE    SERVICE    OF    SONG.  355 

Americans  and  prefer  our  jingling  slajD-bang  style  of 
harmony.  Some  of  our  better  educated  musicians  are 
dreadfully  concerned  over  this  ;  but  it  is  of  no  use  — 
the}'  might  as  well  accept  the  inevitable.  Every  nation 
has  its  own  singing  tongue,  in  which  it  can  best  express 
its  own  emotions,  whether  serious  or  trifling,  religious 
or  secular.  The  best,  or  rather  the  most  satisfactory 
singing  I  heard  in  all  India  was  at  Coconada  at  the 
Canadian  mission  chapel.  Superficially  to  foreign  ears 
it  was  almost  a  deafening  discord  of  yeWs  and  shrieks 
and  subterranean  gutturals.  The  leader  was  a  cross 
between  a  brass  trumpet  and  a  bass  drum.  But  evidently 
that  large  christian  congregation  of  Telugu  natives 
expressed  themselves  fully  and  clearly  in  their  service 
of  song.  It  was  a  christian  hymn  to  a  native  tune.  I 
never  want  to  hear  it  in  America,  but  I  did  not  want  to 
hear  anything  else  there.  ]Mrs.  Downie  of  Xellore  has 
done  a  good  work  for  the  mission  cause  in  lately  gather- 
ing up  a  little  volume  of  native  airs,  and  in  adapting  to 
them  christian  hjmns.  She  assured  me  that  the  natives 
much  pr-eferred  their  own  melodies,  and  that  they  are 
far  more  useful  in  public  worship  than  tunes  imported 
from  abroad. 

But  I  cannot  linger  with  my  reader  longer  in  India. 
Between  the  coasts  of  Tenasserim  and  of  Malabar  we 
have  spent  four  delightful  months,  surveying  the  scenes 
where  Christian  jNlissions  have  reached  their  fullest 
development.  Never  shall  we  forget  some  —  yea,  many 
of  these  experiences  ;  these  sittings  together  in  heavenly 
places  in  Christ  Jesus  with  hundreds  of  missionaries  and 
thousands  of  christian  converts.  I  may  forget  the  tomb 
of  Akbar  at  Secundra,  the  Palace  and  Pearl  Mosque  in  the 
fort  of  Agra,  and  the  garden  of  the  massacre  at  Cawn- 
pore.  I  may  forget  the  lofty  walls  of  Delhi,  its  famous 
Broadway  of  Chandney  Chook,  and  the  Hall  of  Audience 
where  the  Great  Mogul  sat  upon  a  peacock  throne  worth 
thirty  millions  of  dollars,  more  than  twice  the  cost  thus 
far  of  all  christian  missions  in  India.  I  may  forget  the 
Kootub  Minar,  the  Cashmere  Gate,  the  Lucknow 
Residency,  the  lofty  Himalayas  clad  in  their  everlasting 


356  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

snow.  Yea,  some  time  I  may  forget  the  Taj,  that 
peerless  architectm-e  of  the  heart  on  earth,  that  Koh-i- 
noor  of  India's  glory  upon  the  bank  of  the  Jumna ;  — 
but  I  never  can  forget  many  scenes  of  diviner  glory 
around,  temples  of  God's  Spirit  not  made  with  hands, 
lavish  displays  of  redeeming  grace  and  dying  love  among 
these  throntyino^  millions  of  southern  Asia.  Our  haste 
leaves  much  instruction  behind  ungathered.  We  might 
recall  native  illustrations  of  the  doctrine  of  sacrifice,  a 
starting  point  for  evangelical  truth.  We  might  visit 
here  in  Bombay  the  Beni-Israel,  or  descendants  of  that 
remnant  of  the  captivity,  which  fled  into  Egypt,  and,  as 
warned  by  Jeremiah,  were  sent  captive  to  Arabia.  We 
might  note  the  proved  wisdom  of  catechetical  methods 
of  mission  instruction ;  the  rapidly  increasing  pressure 
for  a  thoroughly  educated  native  ministry ;  the  supply 
of  high  schools  outstripping  the  elementary  ;  the  increased 
attention  given  to  village  work  —  so  wisely  and  full 
of  promise ;  a  growing  emphasis  upon  personal  labor 
from  house  to  house  ;  the  prudence  of  requiring  mission- 
aries to  pass  examinations  in  the  language  at  the  end  of 
the  first  and  second  years  ;  that  Roman  Catholic  influence 
in  India  is  far  behind  Protestantism.  But  my  family 
has  preceded  by  way  of  the  Red  Sea  and  Egypt,  and 
will  await  me  three  months  hence  at  Beirut,  Syria. 
Meanwhile  before  me  lies  the  tour  of  Persia  and  Arabia, 
Baghdad,  Babylon  and  Nineveh.  Only  too  soon  my  ship 
weighs  anchor  in  the  harbor  of  Bombay.  A  day  at 
Kurrachee  near  the  mouth  of  the  Indus ;  and,  farewell 
to  India ! 


ANCIENT   COLOSSAL   EMPIEE.  357 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

PERSIA  AND  EASTWARD. 

HE  boundaries  of  Persia,  which  exchanged 
Zoroaster  for Maliomet  in  641  A. D.,  though 
still  extensive,  are  far  from  what  they  were 
under  Cyrus  and  his  immediate  successors. 
Shah  Nassr-ud-din,  the  present  king,  holds 
absolute    sway    over   an   area  of  648,000 
square  miles,  three  times  that  of  France. 
It  is  five  hundred  miles  across  from  the  Persian  Gulf  to 
the  Caspian  Sea,  and  fifteen  hundred  miles  in  the  ex- 
treme length  from  the  southern  border  of  Beluchistan  to 
the  nortliAvest    corner  of  the  province  of  Adarbaijan. 
But  such  territory  is  only  a  remnant  of  that  vast  empire, 
from  550  to  335  B.C.,  whose  ruler  could  say:     "All 
the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  hath  the  Lord  God  of  heaven 
given  me."     Then  to  the  eastward  were  included,  not 
only  Afghanistan    and  Beluchistan  to  the  river  Indus, 
but  also   the  Punjaub,  with  the  Vale  of  Cashmere  and 
Turkestan.     To    the    north    then,  Persia's    Caucasian 
provinces  touched  the  neighborhood  of  modern  Sebas- 
topol.     Westward  were  included  all  Armenia,  Mesopo- 
tamia, Syria,  Asia  Minor,  and  Egypt.     The  boundaries 
were  almost  as  extensive  as  those  of  the  Roman  empire 
under  Trajan,  three    centuries  and  a  half  later.      The 
population  must  have  been  at  least  one  hundred  millions. 
It  furnished  six  hundred  thousand  men  to  meet  the  army 
of  Alexander  near  Issus,    one  million  at  the  decisive 
battle  of  Arbela,  and  five  millions  nearly  a  century  and 
a  half  previously  with  which,  under  Xerxes,  to  attempt 
the  invasion  of  Greece. 


358  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

But  how,  indeed,  is  the  mighty  empire  fallen !  The 
power,  which  commissioned  Nehemiah  to  rebuild  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem,  which  could  colonize  Egypt  with 
Syrian  and  Phoenician  captives,  and  which  ruled  from 
the  Erythraean  Sea  to  the  Euxine,  and  from  far  1)eyond 
the  Oxus  to  the  mysterious  boundaries  of  Ethiopia,  has 
become  too  insignificant  for  any  infiuence  among  foreign 
governments.  The  frequently  marked  interest  of  both 
England  and  Russia  is  only  in  its  territory,  which  blocks 
the  shortest  highway  between  Europe  and  the  East. 
Turks  and  Turcomans,  Arabs,  Afghans  and  Beluchis 
have  developed  independent  and  aggressive  powers  all 
around  Persia,  and  their  representatives  form  the  most 
valuable  part  of  the  population  of  the  empire  to-day. 
It  is  doul)tful  whether  there  are  more  than  four  millions 
of  inhabitants  at  present,  distributed  about  equally 
among  the  cities,  the  wandering  tribes,  and  the  village 
or  country  districts.  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  allows, 
perhaps,  six  millions,  but  my  own  impressions,  in 
different  parts  of  the  country,  have  been  that  this  is  a 
large  overestimate.  Ten  years  ago  a  terrible  famine 
swept  away  nearly  one  and  a  half  million  of  the  people. 
Thus,  and  by  frequent  wars,  and  by  most  wretched 
misrule,  the  country  is  becoming  almost  depopulated. 
The  old  capital,  Ispahan,  was  estimated  to  have  seven 
hundred  thousand  citizens  by  Sir  John  Chardin,  who 
visited  Persia  in  the  seventeenth  centur}^  but  to-day 
there  are  only  sixty  thousand.  During  the  same  time 
the  population  of  Tabriz  has  decreased  from  five  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  to  one  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand.  The  present  capital  of  Teheran  has  eigi.ty- 
five  thousand  inhabitants.  Shiraz  is  probably  as  large 
as  Tabriz. 

The  richest  portion  of  Persia  to-day  borders  upon  the 
southern  shore  of  the  Caspian  sea,  and  includes  many 
fertile  valleys  to  the  west  around  the  great  lake  of 
Oroomiah.  This  is  the  field  occupied  by  the  missions 
of  the  American  Presbyterian  Church.  Two  thirds  of 
the  rest  of  the  country  is  a  dreary  desert.  But  it 
should  not  be  so,  any  more  than  half  of  Palestine,  or  of 


NATURAL   KESOUKCES.  359 

Mesopotamia.  The  resources  for  irrigation  are  ade- 
quate, though  not  equal  to  those  of  Afghanistan  and 
Asiatic  Turkey.  The  traveller  daily  meets  with  water- 
course ruins,  which  tell  of  former  fertility,  of  wooded 
hills  and  cultivated  plains,  of  a  much  more  moderated 
temperature  in  the  summer,  and  of  either  the  absence 
entirely  of  any  desert  in  the  country  or  its  limit  to  the 
eastern  central  district.  Persia  has  no  great  rivers,  but 
evidently  in  centuries  long  gone  by  the  little  streams 
as  the  Karin,  the  Kazil  Uzun,  the  Atrak,  the  Feruza- 
bad,  and  others  were  much  larger.  Under  tyranny, 
waste  and  neglect  most  of  the  land  has  been  allowed  to 
fall  out  of  cultivation,  the  forests  have  disappeared,  the 
roots  have  gone  which  formerly  retained  the  soil  upon 
the  numerous  limestone  hills  and  mountain  sides,  capital 
and  labor  have  mostly  vanished,  and  the  climate  during 
the  hot  season  has  become  almost  intolerable.  Good 
government,  industry  and  capital  could  yet  repair  this 
waste  and  neglect  of  centuries,  could  utilize  all  these 
bleak  headlands  and  dreary  lowlands,  and,  even  as  in 
Palestine,  make  the  ^'desert  springs  of  water,"  and  the 
"wilderness  blossom  as  the  rose." 

Russia  first,  and  then  England  became  interested  by 
way  of  commerce  with  Persia  in  the  middle  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  The  Portuguese  had  preceded  them  by 
occupying  the  celebrated  island  of  Ormuz  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Persian  gulf,  and  making  it  the  port  of  a  vast 
inland  trade.  But  with  English  help  Shah  Abbas  ex- 
pelled them,  and  factories  were  established  by  the  East 
India  Company  upon  the  adjoining  main  land,  as  also 
subsequently  at  Bushire.  Agents  from  London  and  St. 
Petersburg  usually  resided  henceforth  at  the  capital.  A 
terrible  state  of  anarchy  existed  throughout  the  country 
during  the  last  century.  One  after  another  dynasty  was 
overturned,  till  the  present  was  founded  by  Agha  Mo- 
hammed. Twice  since  has  Great  Britain  declared  war 
against  Persia.  But  for  the  firmness  with  which  British 
interests  have  been  guarded  here,  no  doubt  that  ere  this 
Russia  would  have  absorbed  the  western  part  of  the 
country,   and   either   have  annexed   from  Turkey  the 


360  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

valley  of  the  Tigris,  or  have  united  by  a  railway  the 
Caspian  sea  and  the  Persian  gulf.  For  the  great  north- 
ern power  this  attainment  would  be  next  best  to  the 
conquest  of  Constantinople  and  the  mastery  of  the  Bos- 
porus and  the  Dardanelles.  The  present  king,  who  has 
occupied  the  throne  since  1848,  has  twice  visited  Europe, 
and  has  either  been  a  dull  pupil  of  Christendom,  or  finds 
his  people  too  bigoted  and  fanatical  to  accept  much 
reform. 

The  Persians  did  not  impress  me  so  favorably  as  the 
surrounding  populations  and  their  representatives  within 
the  Shah's  dominion.  The  Kurds  alone  seem  to  have 
sunk  to  a  lower  level  of  physical,  moral  and  intellectual 
force.  The  Afghan  and  Turcoman  elements  have  lately 
proved  through  their  neighboring  kindred,  that  they  can 
meet  successfully  upon  the  fields  of  liattle  even  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  Slavonic  courage.  In  the  South  and  West 
Arab  immigrants  appeared  to  me  as  having  quite  mo- 
nopolized all  leading  business.  The  inevitable  tendency, 
even  without  European  interference,  would  seem  to  be 
toward  the  speedy  dissolution  of  Persian  power.  To 
this  the  division  and  hostilit}^  between  the  Shia  and 
Sunn!  sects  of  Mahometans  will  contribute.  The  city 
and  village  populations  mostly  belong  to  the  former, 
who  hold  that  Ali,  INIahomet's  son-in-hiAV,  should  have 
succeeded  to  the  Caliphate.  They  esteem  Hussain,  the 
son  of  Ali,  as  the  great  Moslem  martyr,  and  his  tomb 
at  Karbela,  two  days  west  of  Baghdad,  as  a  principal 
shrine  for  pilgrimage.  But  the  wandering  tribes  are 
nearly  all  SunnTs,  and  regard  as  lawfulh^  appointed  the 
three  Caliphs,  Abu-bekr,  Omar,  and  Othman.  Besides 
this  bitterly  hostile  division,  there  are  many  free  think- 
ers in  Persia,  and  the  SufTs  or  Moslem  rationalists,  the 
Daoudee  dissenters,  who  res^ard  David  as  o-reater  than 
Mahomet,  the  Ismailites,  or  "assassins,"  the  Babys  who 
claim  Mahomet's  mission  to  be  ended,  and  other  sects. 
Outside  the  Moslem  population  are  2(3,000  Armenians, 
25,000  Nestorians,  16,000  Jews,  and  7,000  Parsees. 

Christian  missions  in  Persia  w^ere  undertaken,  though 
unsuccessfully,  by  the  Moravians  in  the  middle  of  the 


AMERICAN    PRESBYTERIAN    AND    OTHER    WORKERS.     361 

last  century.  During  the  first  third  of  the  present  cen- 
tury various  missionary  efforts  were  made  in  the  north- 
west, but  they  were  unable  to  resist  the  hostility  of  the 
Russian  Greek  Chu  ch.  In  1811  Henry  Marty n,  whose 
brief  life-work  in  part  we  met  at  Serampore,  India,  with 
great  heroism  established  a  mission  at  Shiraz,  where 
he  translated  into  Persian  the  Xew  Testament  and  the 
Psalms  of  David.  The  American  Board,  through  Dr. 
Perkins,  founded  the  Oroomiah  mission  in  1834.  At 
the  amicable  partition  in  1871,  this  was  transferred  to 
the  Presley terian  Society.  The  Avork  has  been  chiefly 
among  the  Nestorians  and  through  the  medium  of  the 
modern  Syriac.  In  1870  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bruce,  mission- 
aries of  some  previous  experience  of  the  C.  M.  S.  in 
India,  stationed  themselves  in  Julfii,  the  Armenian  sub- 
urb of  Ispahan.  They  have  met  here  with  considerable 
success,  having  enrolled  150  adherents,  55  communi- 
cants, and  over  200  scholars.  The  total  statistics  of  the 
Presbyterian  mission,  including  the  stations  at  Oroomiah, 
Seir,  Teheran,  and  Tabriz,  are  :  missionaries  23,  native 
preachers  87,  scholars  1,923,  communicants  1,321,  ad- 
herents 5,500.  The  American  Bible  Society  has  one 
missionary  in  Persia. 

Such  statistics,  forty-six  years  after  the  establishment 
of  the  American  ]Mission,  are,  at  first  sight,  far  from  in- 
spiring. Xot  only  have  there  been  so  many  years,  but 
also  so  many  laborers.  Last  year  the  Presbyterian  ex- 
penditure, on  account  of  their  mission  in  Persia,  was 
$56,464.  Probably  there  has  been  spent  by  this  and 
the  Church  ^Mission  societies  in  all  upon  this  field  not  far 
from  $800,000.  But  the  average  work  of  evangelization 
in  christian  lands,  it  must  be  confessed,  presents  even  a 
less  satisfiictory  exhibit.  We  do  not  relish  the  com- 
parison. Indeed  it  should  not  be  indulged  in  a  moment, 
if  the  number  of  converts  is  supposed  to  represent  all 
the  gains  for  the  pains  and  expenditures,  and  if  it  is  for- 
gotten that  all  contributed  of  life,  labor  and  money  are 
cnly  placed  as  instruments  in  the  hands  of  God,  with 
whom  alone  is  the  [)ower  to  make  genuine  christians, 
either  in  home  or  foreign  lands.     To  compare,  for  ex- 


362  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ample,  the  outlay  of  mission  money  per  convert  in 
Persia  with  the  corresponding  amount  expended  in 
America,  may,  without  serious  harm,  quiet  some  of  the 
anxieties  of  the  statistically  inclined,  and  encourage  re- 
enlistment  of  practical  interest  in  missions. 

Take  an  American  city  of  100,000  inhabitants.  There 
will  be  some  50  Protestant  evangelical  churches,  with 
an  average  of  250  communicants,  or  a  total  of  12,500. 
In  each  church,  besides  the  pastor,  are  furnished  in  the 
good  providence  of  God  at  least  an  equivalent  of  three 
missionary  assistants,  whose  gratuitous  services  in  paro- 
chial visiting,  public  exhortation  and  counsel  are  worth 
more  than  half  those  of  the  minister.  If  the  average 
running  expenses  of  those  churches  be  reckoned  at 
$3,000V  or  in  all  $150,000  annually,  we  should  credit 
the  voluntary  associate  labor,  above  that  to  be  ex- 
pected from  christians  generally,  as  an  additional  con- 
tribution of  $75,000.  Then  $50,000  more  every 
year  must  be  placed  to  the  account  of  building  and 
repair  funds.  The  sum  total  then  of  the  cost  of  main- 
taining the  evangelical  churches  in  an  average  American 
city  of  100,000  population  is  $275,000.  Except  in  times 
of  extraordinarv  relio^ious  awakenins:  and  ino^atherino- 
not  more  than  10  converts  per  church,  or  500  converts 
for  the  50  churches,  are  usually  reported.  This  is  a 
sad  commentarj^  upon  the  efficiency  of  our  home 
ministry  and  all  their  accompanying  wealth  of  evan- 
gelizing instrumentalities.  But  it  is  a  true  one,  and 
to  it  the  attention  of  many  needs  to  be  directed, 
who  are  so  ready  to  draw  comparisons  to  the  dis- 
paragement of  foreign  missions.  The  amount  of  money 
then  spent  in  home  evangelization  over  against  each 
fully  enrolled  member  of  the  church  is  $550.  We 
must  use  this  circumlocution,  for  it  would  seem  so  like 
blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Spirit  to  speak  of  such  sum 
of  money  as  the  cost  of  each  convert.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  Persia  at  this  rate  of  associated  expenditure,  the 
1,341  communicants  would  call  for  an  accompanying 
outlay  of  $754,050,  almost  the  total  amount  actually 
spent   of  mission   money  upon  this  field   since   1834. 


STRATEGY   IN   EVANGELIZATION.  363 

But  these  are  not  all  who  have  been  gathered  there 
into  the  Church  of  Christ.  Many  true  native  christians 
have  finished  their  course  triumphantly,  and  gone  to  the 
world  of  light,  where  no  cavilling  upon  the  economics 
of  foreign  missions  have  to  be  answered  by  any  such 
wretched  statistical  apologetics  as  these.  They  would 
swell  the  number  of  genuine  Persian  disciples  thus  far  to 
at  least  2,500,  and  make  the  associated  expenditure  for 
each  $320.  This  is  only  a  little  over  half  the  accom- 
panying outlay  in  the  case  of  every  convert  in  America. 
But  when  there  is  also  taken  into  account  the  various 
social  and  educational  advantao:es  in  our  own  christian 
land,  the  thorough  equipment  of  our  modern  Sunday 
school  enterprise,  and  the  enormous  amount  of  our  evan- 
gelical literature,  it  is  safe  to  reckon  that  the  Church 
spends  over  twice  as  much  money  in  connection  with 
each  convert  at  home,  as  in  the  case  of  each  convert  in 
Persia  or  in  any  other  of  the  most  difficult  fields  of 
foreign  mission  labor.  The  advantage  is  vastly  greater 
in  favor  of  foreio'n  evans^elization  when  we  turn  for  com- 
parison  to  the  more  highly  favored  mission  lands,  or 
even  when  the  whole  field  is  included  and  averaged. 

It  is  important  to  remember,  whenever  we  survey  the 
battle-field  abroad,  with  a  heathen  and  anti-christian 
world  arrayed  against  us,  that  all  positions  are  not  of 
equal  strategic  importance,  and  that  there  are  places 
and  times,  when  the  capture  of  a  few  of  the  enemy  are 
of  the  greatest  possiljle  consequence.  In  the  last 
Virginia  campaign  of  the  American  war,  I  saw  three 
thousand  Confederate  soldiers  made  prisoners  at  one 
time  ;  but  of  greater  moment  was  it,  that  a  certain  bat- 
tery should  be  silenced,  that  was  located  upon  a  very 
commanding  hill  and  manned  by  only  a  single  company. 
When  finally,  hours  after,  at  great  cost  of  life  and 
ammunition,  those  heavy  guns  so  l^ravely  defended  were 
spiked,  louder  huzzahs  greeted  the  victory  than  when 
the  several  reghnents  from  the  open  field  had  surren- 
dered. Persia  is  one  of  those  specially  important 
eminences.  It  is  one  of  the  principal  keys  to  the 
situation  in  Asia.     Strategically  considered,  a  perma- 


364  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

nently  established  mission  there,  with  a  hundred  converts, 
is  of  more  consequence  than  several  mission  stations  and 
several  hundred  converts  in  Polynesia  or  Patagonia.  It 
is  certain  to  become  again  the  home  of  a  vast  population, 
and  at  no  very  distant  day.  Turkomans,  Afghans  and 
Arabs,  driven  inward  by  the  fortunes  of  war  and  the 
exasperations  of  tyranny,  and  encouraged  by  the  con- 
tinual decay  of  the  native  Persian  element,  are  peopling 
the  land,  and  ere  long  will  quite  generally  occupy  it 
with  the  best  blood  of  western  Asia.  English  and 
Russian  interests  are  pressing  in  upon  the  Persian 
border  more  and  more  peremptorily.  Great  Britain  has 
just  annexed  Bushire,  and  the  northern  power  is  almost 
at  the  gates  of  Teheran.  The  Euphrates  A^alley  railway 
upon  the  west, — now  surely  not  a  very  distant  realiz- 
ation, —  will  speedily  provoke  Russian  capital  to  one 
from  the  Caspian  .^ea  to  the  Persian  Gulf.  A  shore  line 
railway  will  l)e  demanded  along  the  southern  coast,  con- 
necting the  Euphrates  road  with  the  vast  India  network 
at  Kurrachee.  I  met  parties  engaged  in  the  surveying 
of  these  routes.  They  are  all  practicable  and  sure  to 
attract  capital.  Political  interests  are  rapidly  accumu- 
lating to  hasten  the  day  of  their  completion.  What  the 
American  trans-continental  railway  is  proving  to  the 
development  of  our  hitherto  sparsely  settled  and  lawless 
western  territories,  these  Mesopotamian  and  Persian 
lines  wnll  prove  to  the  dominions  of  the  Shah,  or  of  his 
successors,  whoever  or  whatever  they  may  be.  Wealth 
and  population  are  evidently  preparing  for  this  long 
W'ttsted  and  misruled  country.  Commerce  first  will  feed 
the  incoming  people,  but  gradually  the  old  lands,  which 
have  lapsed  into  infertility,  w^ill  be  brought  back  under 
cultivation.  The  population,  composed  of  various  nation- 
alities, the  most  vigorous  and  aggressive  of  western  Asia, 
and  the  most  stalwart  and  .enterprising  of  Europe,  will 
be  very  important,  not  only  in  numbers  and  ethnological 
character,  but  also  in  their  commercial  and  religious 
influences  upon  the  surrounding  nations.  Hitherto  the 
most  intensely  Moslem,  it  w^ould  seem  that  the  various 
elements  of  influence  at  work  wdll  make  Persian  Islam- 


THE    SHAH    AND   TEHERAN.  365 

ism  the  most  liberal  in  the  Mahometan  world  during 
the  coming  century.  The  situation  is  peculiarly  inter- 
esting to  thoughtful  evangelization.  The  Presbyterian 
and  Church  Mission  societies  are  wise  in  establishing  and 
liberally  supporting  their  Persian  stations.  To  super- 
hcial  glance  their  statistics  may  not  be  encouraging,  but 
considering  the  difficulties  which  have  been  encountered, 
the  results  are  very  gratifying,  and  the  future  is  full  of 
hope.  Persia  can  probably  never  again  rule  the  world, 
as  it  did  under  Cyrus  and  his  immediate  successors,  but 
the  wheel  of  history  apparently  will  soon  bring  round 
the  day,  when  its  commercial  and  religious  influences 
will  again  reach  over  a  hundred  millions  of  people. 
When  the  Sultan  has  been  driven  from  Europe  into  Asia 
Minor,  Persian  power  will  outrank  the  Turk  throughout 
the  Moslem  world.  I  was  greatly  surprised  to  find  how 
high  the  Shah  stands  in  popular  esteem  all  the  way  from 
Calcutta  to  Constantinople,  and  from  Egypt  to  the 
Caucasus. 

Within  the  past  three  years  Austrian  military  com- 
manders have  been  employed  for  the  re-organization  of 
the  Persian  army.  Under  the  superintendence  of  an 
Italian  a  police  force  has  been  established.  The  gov- 
ernment has  commenced  the  construction  of  gas  works 
under  French  engineers  and  mechanics.  Between  Tehe- 
ran and  Casveen  a  wagon  road  has  been  made  and 
furnished  with  a  regular  line  of  stages.  The  capital  is 
located  a  few  miles  to  the  south  of  the  Eli)urz  oMoun- 
tains,  and,  though  seventy  miles  from  the  Caspian,  is 
two  hundred  miles  from  Rescht  its  principal  port.  This 
mountain  range  attains  the  height  of  thirteen  thousand 
feet,  and  is  covered  till  midsummer  with  snow.  An 
hours  ride  from  Teheran  are  the  extensive  ruins  of  the 
vast  cit}'  of  Phei,  once  containing  a  population  of  per- 
haps 1,500,000.  Nearly  all  the  houses  of  the  capital 
are  built  of  sun-dried  brick,  the  roofs  being  made  of 
rushes,  straw  and  mud  supported  by  beams,  and  the 
interiors  whitened  and  sometimes  decorated  with  burnt- 
brick  columns  and  otherwise.  They  are  generally  but 
one  story  high.     The  royal  palace  with  its  four  or  five 


366  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

stories  is  the  most  conspicuous  object  of  the  city.  There 
are  districts  quite  modernized,  with  clean,  straight, 
wide  streets,  lit  from  iron  lamp-})Osts.  Gas  is  soon  to 
be  substituted,  and  a  few  electric  lamps  are  already  in 
use  upon  state  occasions. 

Beyond  the  walls  of  Teheran  there  is  considerable 
religious  toleration.  It  is  not,  however,  to  the  credit  of 
the  law,  which  is  repressive  and  cruel,  but  on  account 
of  the  looseness  of  the  police  system,  the  conflicting 
feudal  authorities,  and  the  general  misrule.  Even  in 
the  capital  the  Persians  do  not  take  kindly  to  religious 
rules  and  regulations,  adopted  from  Austrian  and  Rus- 
sian codes,  and  Moslemized.;  so  even  there  the  mission- 
aries find  a  measure  of  toleration,  under  which  with 
great  caution  they  can  pursue  their  labors.  Lately  at 
Seena,  a  provincial  capital,  a  missionary  had  every 
opportunity  granted  him  for  christian  conversation  and  the 
sale  of  Bibles.  The  right  of  preaching  throughout  the 
country  freely  even  to  Mussulmans  is  coming  to  be 
generally  acknoAvledged.  The  civil  authorities  are 
showing  less  deference  to  the  mollahs,  when  these 
ecclesiastics  of  the  State  Church  enter  their  complaints 
against  the  missionaries  for  preaching  to  Mahometans. 
Some  time  since  when  several  arrests  were  made  at 
Tabriz  for  attending  christian  services,  the  men  were 
released  by  a  telegraphic  order  from  the  Shah.  Recently 
a  list  of  Mussulmans  in  the  habit  of  attending  chapel 
was  handed  the  Crown  Prince,  and  he  refused  to  give  it 
any  attention.  Even  the  prominent  mollahs  themselves 
in  Oroomiah  have  publicly  declared  that  the  missionaries 
had  a  right  to  teach  their  religion  to  whom  they  pleased. 
It  is  very  evident  that  the  influence  of  christian  teachers 
is  spreading  throughout  Persia.  They  need  no  longer 
remain  on  the  defensive.  The  native  priesthood  is 
losing  power,  largely  no  doubt  on  account  of  its  increas- 
ing ignorance  and  notorious  corruption.  ''  Every  day," 
writes  Rev.  J.  H.  Shedd,  "one  may  hear  from  noble  and 
peasant  wholesale  denunciations  of  the  mollahs.  We 
are  often  amused  to  see  how  the  people  enjoy  our  Lord's 
woes  against  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  their  hearty 


A   BREACH    IN    THE    WALL    OF   ISLAM.  367 

application  of  them  to  the  greedy  expounders  of  their 
own  law." 

It  is  a  very  hopeful  fact  to  Christian  Missions  that 
Persian  Mahometans  are  considered  heretics  by  their 
co-rehgionists.  They  are  familiar  then  with  the  attitude 
of  dissent,  and  with  argumentation  to  justify  their 
diiferences,  in  some  respects  very  trivial,  but  in  others 
quite  fundamental  to  the  Moslem  religious  system.  Thus 
the  Shia  sect  rejects  the  orthodox  method  of  ablution 
l)efore  prayer,  in  that  they  insist  upon  the  washing  being 
done  from  the  elbow  to  the  wrist,  instead  of  from  the 
wrist  to  the  elbow.  But  of  greater  consequence  is  the 
Persian  Mahometan  hostility  to  the  first  three  Caliphs, 
even  to  Osman,  the  compiler  of  the  Koran.  The 
veneration  paid  to  Ali,  who  is  not  recognized  by  the 
SunnTs,  is  almost  a  denial  of  the  pure  Moslem  theism. 
Here  then  in  Persia  Christian  Missions  find  already  a 
break  in  the  great  solid  ranks  of  the  false  prophet's  fol- 
lowers. There  is  an  advantage  here  to  be  followed  up, 
a  weakness  exposed  to  assault.  With  all  his  arrogance 
and  intolerance  no  Shia  can  deny  that  Mahometanism, 
judged  by  the  majority  of  its  adherents,  may  be  radically, 
cruelly  wrong. 

Several  of  the  Persian  sects  are  doing  much  to  eman- 
cipate the  Moslem  mind  from  the  absolute  tyranny  of 
pure  Islamism.  With  all  the  triviality,  and  generally 
equally  gross  substitutions  of  doctrine  and  practice,  the 
dissent  gives  a  taste  of  religious  liberty,  which  awakens 
some  measure  of  disposition  to  listen  the  more  atten- 
tively to  our  missionaries.  Both  they  and  the  mission 
native  helpers  are  always  welcome  for  religious  discus- 
sion to  the  social  circles  of  these  Moslem  sects. 
Liberality  is  a  cardinal  doctrine  with  the  Sheikhees. 
The  Arifs,  or  Sufis,  whom  we  have  mentioned,  are  very 
liberal,  claiming  that  to  the  intelligent  the  precepts  of 
the  law  are  not  binding.  Thus  one  of  them  has  illus- 
trated :  ^^The  green  husk  and  hard  shell  of  the  almond 
are  necessary  to  the  growth  and  preservation  of  the 
kernel ;  but  to  the  man  who  has  the  kernel  they  are  of 
no  value.     So  the  forms  of  religion  are  not  necessary  to 


368  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

those  who  have  arrived  at  a  full  understanding  of  the 
truth."  Such  sentiments,  while  furnishing  some  in- 
creased difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  Gospel,  are  neverthe- 
less a  preparation  especially  among  Moslem  populations 
of  very  great  moment  to  the  missionary  of  the  Cross, 
The  Babys  are  very  heretical,  and  they  number  many 
thousands  to-day  in  Persia.  Their  leader,  who  appeared 
some  forty  years  ago  claiming  to  be  the  Bab,  or  Gate  of 
Heaven,  was  executed  by  the  government  for  heresy  and 
sedition.  His  successor  is  at  present  an  exile  at  Acre, 
Syria,  under  Turkish  surveillance.  This  sect  is  doing 
much  to  cultivate  kindly  feelings  toward  Christians,  to 
unsettle  Moslem  faith,  and  to  furnish  our  chapels  with 
hearers.  The  large  proportion  of  those  who  listen  to 
our  missionaries  have  been  under  the  influence  of  the 
Babys.  The  Daoudees  are  very  numerous,  very  hostile 
to  strict  Moslemism,  and  claim  to  be  nearer  christians 
than  the  followers  of  any  other  religion.  But  they 
consider  the  incarnation  of  Ali  to  be  quite  equal  to  that 
of  Christ,  and  cherish  considerable  paganism  among 
their  ceremonies.  While  eager  to  study  our  Bibles,  it  is 
questionable  whether  their  purpose  is  above  that  we 
have  noted  of  Chunder-Sen  in  Calcutta,  the  leader  of  the 
Brahmo  Somaj.  The  mission  of  all  these  sects  in 
Persia  is  plainly  to  liberalize  the  public  mind,  and  to 
prepare  the  way  for  the  evangelization  of  Shia  Islamism. 
Unquestionably  every  year  indicates  increased  access 
to  the  Moslem  population.  More  of  the  children  are 
admitted  to  our  mission  schools,  and  more  of  the  harems 
are  opened  to  our  women  missionaries.  A  Turkish 
Pasha  remarked  lately  concerning  the  influence  of  mis- 
sion schools  in  Asia  Minor :  "  When  a  girl  comes  back 
home  from  the  seminary,  say  not  a  girl,  but  a  school  has 
come.''  The  report  from  Tabriz  is  that  work  among 
Moslem  as  well  as  Armenian  women  is  limited  only  by 
time  and  strength.  A  great  impression  has  been  made 
by  christian  philanthropy  in  connection  with  the  late 
famine.  The  affliction  was  not  equal  in  extent  to  that 
of  1871  throughout  the  eastern  and  southern  portions, 
but  it  was  sufficient  to  carry  off,  for  example,  twenty  per 


EXPERIMENT    WITH    THE    NESTORIANS.  369 

cent,  of  the  population  of  Oroomiah.  In  this  district 
alone  $40,000  were  distributed  by  the  missionaries,  and 
many  thousands  of  lives  were  saved.  Totally  neglected 
by  the  Moslems  and  their  co-religionists  in  other  lands, 
the  wretched  people  learned  to  appreciate  the  strongly 
contrasted  christian  charity,  and  many  are  convinced 
that  there  is  a  power  in  the  Cross  not  to  be  found  in  the 
Crescent.  It  has  greatly  increased  the  unrest  with  their 
own  religious  system,  and  a  goodly  numlier  of  Mahom- 
etans have  professed  conversion*  Were  not  the  mis- 
sionaries very  careful  not  to  unduly  encourage  those 
who  have  been  influenced  through  famine  relief,  hun- 
dreds, perhaps  even  thousands,  could  be  reported  as 
having  given  in  their  adherence  to  Christianity. 

Up  to  1870  the  special  mission  labor  in  Persia  was 
among  the  Xestorians,  with  the  plan  of  reforming  the  old 
church.  For  more  than  thirty  years  the  most  earnest  and 
intelligent  efll)rts  were  made  to  revive  a  body  that  was 
spiritually  dead.  Glorious  were  many  of  the  Nestorian 
traditions.  Twelve  hundred  years  ago  richest  Pentecos- 
tal blessings  rested  upon  Nestorian  churches  and  their 
foreign  evangelizing  enterprises.  Here  the  encourage- 
ment was  much  greater  for  reform  than  in  either  the  Ro- 
man or  Greek  communions,  or  in  any  of  the  other  frag- 
ments of  the  old  Eastern  Church.  The  plan,  upon  which 
so  many  Protestants  build  hopes  at  present,  of  re  inspiring 
with  divine  life  venerable  ecclesiastical  organizations, 
had  here  a  faithful  trial  with  many  special  advantages ; 
and  it  was  unquestionably  a  failure.  The  missionaries 
found  it  necessary  to  estal)lish  a  separate  church  organi- 
zation. The  lesson  was  costly  in  life  and  treasure,  and 
all  branches  of  the  true  spiritual  Church  everywhere 
should  learn  it.  The  hope  need  not  be  extinguished  of 
the  ultimate  resurrection  to  evangelical  life  and  influ- 
ence of  some  at  least  of  these  ancient  ecclesiastical 
bodies.  He,  who  called  forth  Lazarus  from  the  tomb, 
is  able  here  also  to  speak  the  resurrection  word.  And 
that  He  will,  I  acknowledge  is  my  own  firm  and  prayer- 
ful expectation.  Still  I  have  no  faith  in  human  ma- 
nipulations   of    the    corpse.      The    power   must   very 


370  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

manifestly  be  of  God,  and  not  of  man.  No  contriving, 
compromising  wisdom  of  this  world  is  to  effect  this  object. 
Not  diplomacy,  but  the  revelation  of  spiritual  power 
can  realize  our  hope.  Meanwhile,  in  the  light  of  Scrip- 
ture and  history,  the  path  of  Christian  Missions  is  plain. 
Let  every  evangelical  society  establish  among  its  con- 
verts its  own  church  organization.  Let  the  aim  be  to 
build  exactly  according  to  what  is  conscientiously  be- 
lieved to  be  the  model  furnished  in  God's  Word.  The 
temptation  must  be  resisted  to  step  aside  from  any  part- 
nership entanglements  with  any  venerable  formalism 
that  is  but  the  relic  of  an  old  church  life.  Isolated 
humble  beginnings  of  christian  organization  have  not 
the  eclat  of  direct  undertakings  to  reform  Roman, 
Greek,  Armenian,  Nestorian,  or  other  communions,  but 
quite  evidently  it  is  the  Master's  way  for  our  patient 
waiting,  till  He  is  ready  to  call  forth  from  the  tombs. 

The  Eoman  Catholics  are  very  active  both  in  Persia 
and  in  Afghanistan.  They  spend  largely  in  their  pro- 
paganda, and  often  unscrupulously.  They  avail  them- 
selves frequently  of  the  extremities  of  the  people  to 
hire  them  to  join  the  "Holy  Mother  Church."  The 
Persian  taste  for  intrigue  furnishes  them  with  large 
opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  what  history  has 
proved  to  be  their  favorite  gift.  The  priests  have  no 
hesitancy  in  pledging  their  converts  all  civil  protection 
they  may  need  for  the  advancement  of  their  own  inter- 
ests. Still  here  undoubtedly,  as  in  so  many  other 
nations  outside  of  Christendom,  there  are  conscientious, 
faithful,  and  on  the  whole  useful  missionaries  of  the 
Cross  within  the  Papal  communion.  In  Afghanistan 
lately,  as  illustrating  enterprise  which  Protestant  mis- 
sions do  well  to  emulate,  even  before  the  publishing  of 
the  treaty  between  Yakub  Khan  and  the  British  India 
government,  four  Roman  Catholic  missionaries  were  on 
their  way  to  the  important  centres  of  Jellallabad  and 
Candahar. 

There  is  a  remarkable  awakening  among  the  Persian 
Jews  in  Hamadan.  From  their  community  of  five 
thousand,  many  of  the  leaders  in  character  and  wealth 


RIGHTS    AND   PROSPECTS   OF    THE   JEWS.  371 

have  professed  Christianity.  They  are  meeting  here,  as 
also  at  8esnah,  Kermanshah  and  elsewhere  more  perse- 
cution than  any  other  class.  The  Moslem  hatred  of  the 
Jew  in  Persia  is  very  intense.  Alas,  that  in  nominal 
christian  lands  public  opinion,  and  civil  customs,  and 
even  statute  laws  in  some  cases  are  not  calculated  to 
teach  the  Moslem  any  better  I  During  the  past  year  the 
treatment  of  the  Jew  in  Berlin  has  been  quite  as  bad  as 
in  Teheran.  To  Israelites  Christian  Missions  have  a  de])t 
of  ol^ligation,  because  of  centuries  of  ill  treatment  re- 
ceived from  peoples  professing  the  religion  of  Christ. 
He  prayed  upon  the  Cross  that  his  Father  might  forgive 
them,  declaring  that  they  were  sinning  ignorantly  in  de- 
manding his  death.  But  christian  nations  have  acted  as 
if  there  w^as  no  forgiveness  for  the  Jew,  that  the  guilt 
of  Calvary  must  ever  rest  upon  his  head,  and  that  no 
lawfulness  of  conduct,  no  enterprise  in  business,  no 
generosity  in  philanthropy  should  shield  him  from 
general  contempt  and  imposition.  Modern  missions  are 
beginning  to  undo  the  wrong.  Their  la])ors  among 
these  people  in  far-oft'  lands,  both  to  evangelize  them 
and  to  secure  them  civil  rights,  have  arrested  the  atten- 
tion of  christian  governments,  and  legislators,  and  popu- 
lations. Inconsistencies  are  being  removed.  A  better 
public  sentiment  is  being  created,  and  unworthy  statute 
and  social  laws  are  being  removed.  Whatever  the 
geographical  future  of  the  widely  scattered  Israelitish 
race,  they  are  certain  to  be  recoonized  as  belons^inof  to 
the  great  brotherhood  of  man ;  race  prejudices  are  to 
vanish  as  allowed  only  to  past  ages  of  superficial  senti- 
ment ;  and  for  these  results  Christian  Missions  are  to  be 
credited,  as  also  for  their  complete  evangelization, 
which  is  as  certain  as  time. 

There  is  a  missionary  lady  residing  in  Oroomiah, 
lately  from  London,  who  has  a  brother  in  Australia,  and 
two  sisters  in  Newfoundland,  all  three  missionaries 
also,  and  the  four  are  entirely  supported  by  their  father. 
What  a  privilege  that  father  enjoys  !  What  an  example 
to  parents  of  large  resources  !  In  homes  of  elegance 
and  refinement,  where  almost  unlimited  means  were  at 


372  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

disposal,  I  have  known  of  children  ready  to  respond  to 
the  foreign  mission  call,  but  held  back  by  proud  im- 
patient parental  discouragements.  Much  better  the 
example  of  that  London  father,  Mr.  Good,  who  sends 
and  sustains  his  children  on  the  foreign  field  at  his  own 
expense.  He  has  given  them  the  best  possible  settle- 
ment for  time  and  eternity.  Their  family  greetings  are 
less  numerous  here,  but  infinitely  enriched  are  they  pre- 
paring to  be  above  in  the  mansions  of  light. 

The  Afghans  are  well  named  from  their  turbulent  dis- 
position. They  call  themselves  "  Beni-Israel"  (Sons  of 
Israel) ,  claiming  this  descent ;  and  it  is  alloAved  by 
many  that  they  may  belong  to  the  lost  Ten  Tribes. 
Their  own  histories  relate  that  many  of  the  captive 
Jews  were  banished  by  the  Bal^ylonians  to  the  moun- 
tains of  Ghor,  lying  between  Herat  and  Kabul,  where 
they  vastly  increased  in  number.  They  were  early  to 
join  the  followers  of  ]Mahomet,  and  fought  under  his 
standard  aofainst  Mecca.  Their  features,  as  I  have  seen 
them  in  the  valley  of  the  Indus,  have  certainly  a  strong 
Jewish  cast.  There  are  the  aquiline  nose,  the  dark 
eyes,  the  Shemitic  complexion.  Then  their  tribal  form 
of  society,  dilfering  in  this  respect  from  the  immediately 
surrounding  nations,  is  quite  similar  to  that  which  ex- 
isted amono^  the  Jews  in  Palestine.  The  Afo^hans  are 
treacherous  and  revengeful,  but  th^y  are  also  hospitable 
and  generous.  The  world  knows  that  they  are  brave.  A 
good  translation  of  the  New^  Testament  has  been  made 
for  them,  and  they  have  some  other  valual^le  christian 
Pushtu  literature.  The  mission  stations  of  the  C.  M.  S. 
among  them  are  across  the  border  in  British  India 
territory. 

No  brighter  examples  of  the  transforming  power  of 
Gospel  truth  can  be  found  than  in  Afghanistan.  Many 
have  heard  of  Dilawur  Khan,  the  converted  Afghan  rob- 
ber. When  the  English  captured  Peshawur,  they  offered 
a  reward  for  his  head.  But  he  was  preserved  to  become 
a  trophy  of  Grace,  a  bright  example  to  his  companions  of 
the  British  army  in  time  of  war,  and  one  of  the  most 
able   and    successful   advocates  of  Christianity   among 


USEFULNESS    OF   MISSIONARY   INVALIDS.  373 

the  Moslem  populations.  Two  hundred  were  led  by 
him,  at  least  intellectually,  to  renounce  the  faith  of  Islam, 
and  to  accept  the  teachings  of  God's  Word.  He  was 
not  a  preacher,  but  simply  a  native  christian,  and  his 
straightforward  consistent  life  spoke  even  more  elo- 
quently than  his  conversations.  Indeed  in  regard  to 
the  work  of  the  missionaries  themselves,  there  is  gene- 
rally too  little  value  placed  upon  their  simple  christian 
living  in  effecting  religious  impressions.  If  home 
churches  hear  of  a  missionary  becoming  bodily  infirm, 
or  from  any  cause  unable  to  continue  his  preaching  or 
other  routine  labors,  it  is  too  hastily  assumed  that  he  is 
incapacitated  from  any  further  usefulness.  Some  of  the 
most  useful  missionaries  I  have  met  have  been  invalids 
from  sickness  or  old  age.  Their  lives  in  the  presence  of 
death  are  brightest  possible  lights  in  the  surrounding 
heathen  darkness.  Their  daily  counsels  and  prayers  and 
examples  are  an  invalual)le  benediction  to  the  other  and 
so-called  active  missionaries  of  their  stations.  A^^hen  I 
recall  the  usefulness  of  this  Afghan's  consistent  life 
over  and  above  his  verlial  testimony,  and  that  his 
example  increased  with  value  clear  up  to  death,  I  seize 
the  indirect  opportunity  to  record  my  impressions  that 
there  should  be  more  readiness  at  home  to  support  in 
foreign  lands  those  missionaries,  who  have  come  from 
sickness  or  age  to  be  unable  to  do  much  more  than  live 
bravely  and  sweetly  for  Christ  in  the  presence  of  the 
heathen  and  unbelieving  world ;  again  that  many  of 
these  missionary  invalids  are  of  incalculable  help  to  the 
other  missionaries  in  the  way  of  example  and  counsel, 
and  in  their  varied  enrichment  of  the  home  life,  which 
ordinary  vigorous  employments  would  not  have  allowed  ; 
and,  still  again,  that  missionaries  in  broken  health  or 
advanced  age  are  often  too  hurried  in  leaving  the  field 
of  their  life  work,  when  their  very  weakness  may  be 
the  strength  of  the  divine  blessing  needed  in  their 
stations,  and  their  triumphant  deaths  upon  their  own 
battle-fields  their  most  valuable  contribution  to  Em- 
manuel's cause. 


374  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 


CHAPTEE  XXII. 

BABYLON,  NINEVEH  AND  JERUSALEM. 

.VISIT  to  Bible  lands  is  not  foreign  to  our 
mission  purpose  of  this  around  the  world 
tour.  Even  if  among  them  there  were 
'no  important  evangelizing  agencies  at  work, 
we  would  do  well  to  turn  aside  here  for  six 
months,  as  we  have,  including  a  former  visit, 
and  gather  up  the  missionary  lessons  and 
inspiration  which  they  contain  for  all  nations  and  for  all 
time.  As  Christian  Missions  need  continually  strength- 
ened faith  in  the  fulfilment  of  prophepy,  familiarity 
with  Bible  lands  should  be  acquired,  for  they  contain 
volumes  of  testimony  upon  stone  and  landscape,  upon 
stately  ruins  and  venerable  customs,  and  upon  the 
topography,  ethnology  and  philology  of  the  varied 
nations,  that  the  promises  contained  in  Holy  Scripture 
are  certain  to  be  performed.  The  "Lo,  I  am  with  you 
alway "  of  the  great  commission,  and  the  "  Unto  me 
every  knee  shall  l)ow  "  and  "  every  tongue  shall  confess 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord"  sound  with  more  emphasis 
and  assurance  to  those  who  have  reverently  studied 
prophecy  upon  the  sites  of  ancient  Babylon  and  Nine- 
veh, along  the  valley  of  the  Nile  and  the  shore  of 
Gennesaret,  under  the  shadow  of  Sinai  and  within  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem.  Amid  these  scenes,  where  the 
religious  desolations  are  even  greater  than  those  of 
civilization,  and  where  in  centuries  past  Christian 
Churches  and  peoples  have  had  the  most  marked  prosper- 
ities, the  missionary  and  his  friend  will  find  the  best  of 
schools  in  which  to  study  the  causes  of  church  declen- 
sion, and  to  learn  how  elsewhere  to  give  permanency  to 


AT   BAGHDAD.  375 

evangelization.  Here  also,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
been  put  on  trial  some  of  the  highest  Godless  civiliza- 
tions the  world  has  ever  known,  and  overwhelming  is 
the  proof  of  their  utter  failure.  The  rise  and  fall  of 
these  mighty  empires  should  enlist  in  the  mission 
cause  every  philanthropic  mind  throughout  the  world, 
for  so  plain  is  it  that  human  power  and  wisdom 
are  not  sufficient  to  lay  the  foundations  of  true 
and  abiding  national  prosperity.  Familiarity  with 
Bible  lands  kindles  special  desire  that  they  may 
again  be  evangelized ;  that  ground,  which  pro- 
phets and  apostles,  yea,  which  the  Master  himself 
hath  trod,  may  once  more  be  illuminated  with  gospel 
light  and  christian  institutions.  And  next  to  the  Scrip- 
tures, as  their  own  best  interpreter,  there  is  no 
commentary  in  the  world  equal  to  "the  lands  of  sacred 
story."  Egypt  and  Arabia,  Syria  and  Phoenice,  Meso- 
potamia and  Palestine,  they  pour  a  flood  of  light  upon 
the  history  and  poetry,  prophecy  and  doctrine  of  Holy 
Writ.  And  as  the  Bible  is  pre-eminently  the  book  of 
Christian  Missions ;  as  in  the  nature  of  the  case  it  must 
be  more  to  the  missionary  than  to  the  clergy  and  laity 
of  christian  lands,  I  wish  right  here  to  enter  a  most 
earnest  recommendation  for  the  permission  and  needed 
funds,  to  enable  our  missionaries,  in  going  or  returning 
hitherward,  to  visit  briefly  the  more  important  of  the 
most  accessible  Bible  lands.  It  would  be  a  richly  pay- 
ing investment  to  give  them  all  at  least  one  month  to 
divide  between  Judea  and  lower  Egypt. 

When,  leaving  Persia  behind,  I  reached  Baghdad, 
the  famous  city  of  Haroun-al-Haschid,  and  "  of  the 
thousand  and  one  nis^hts,'"  it  seemed  rather  like  comino^ 
home  again,  for  the  sights  and  sounds  now  met  had 
been  made  very  familiar  during  a  former  tour  of  several 
months  through  European  Turkey,  Asia  Minor,  Egypt 
and  the  Holy  Land.  There  were  the  same  mosques 
and  minarets,  the  same  green  and  white  turbans,  the 
same  crescent  flags  and  Turkish  coins,  the  same  bazaars 
and  narrow  covered  streets,  and  the  same  manners  and 
customs.     And,  indeed,  it  was  two  thousand  five  hun- 


376  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

dred  miles  nearer  America  than  at  Bombay,  and  it  has 
really  been  homeward  ever  since  we  romided  the  Malay 
peninsula  at  Singapore.  Baghdad  is  by  no  means  what 
it  was  mider  the  Abbasside  dynasty,  when  its  royal 
palace,  founded  by  Al  Mansour,  was  three  miles  in  cir- 
cumference, and  an  empire  reaching  from  the  Great  Wall 
of  China  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and  from  the  Indian 
to  the  Arctic  oceans,  poured  such  treasure  into  this 
same  caliph's  hands,  that,  after  expenditures  upon  his 
capital  quite  comparable  with  those  of  Xapoleon  III. 
upon  Paris,  he  left  behind  $150,000,000  in  gold.  Turk- 
ish misrule  has  accomplished  more  destruction  here  than 
either  the  Tartar  Hulaku  Kan  or  the  INIogul  Tamerlane. 
Still  there  is  a  population  of  some  seventy  thousand, 
lying  mostly  upon  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Tigris,  and 
there  are  many  points  of  interest  in  the  city  and  sub- 
urbs, which,  however,  we  must  not  be  tempted  here  to 
describe. 

Turning  from  mosques  and  bazaars,  from  palaces  and 
more  humble  homes,  from  the  tomb  of  Zobeida  and  the 
shrines  of  Kathimain,  and  from  the  neio^hborinof  ruins 
of  both  Seleucia  and  Ctesiphon,  we  give  our  attention 
now  for  a  few  days  entirely  to  preparation  for  a  more 
than  twelve  hundred  miles'  horseback  journey  through 
Mesopotamia,  Kurdistan  and  Northern  Sj^ria.  An 
American  traveller  has  joined  me  for  part  of  the  dis- 
tance— indeed,  where  are  they  not  to  be  found?  We 
are  guests  at  the  English  Residency,  where  every 
assistance  is  rendered  in  the  purchase  of  horses,  the 
hiring  of  men  and  mules,  and  the  arrangement  of  an 
interminable  number  of  official  introductions  and  favors. 
A  letter  from  the  Foreign  Secretary  of  the  India  Gov- 
ernment has  largely  prepared  the  way  for  the  Baghdad 
Pasha's  services,  and  any  lingering  ennui  or  reluctance 
to  interest  himself  in  our  journey  w^as  overcome  hy  v. 
telegram  from  the  Porte  at  Constantinople,  directing  that 
for  a  few  weeks  now  every  additional  precaution  should  be 
taken  to  secure  travelling  Europeans  from  any  possibility 
of  robbery  and  molestation.  It  was  just  previous  to  the 
overthrow  of  the  Beaconsfield  Cabinet,  and  diplomacy 


TOURING   PREPARATIONS.  377 

was  much  embarrassed.  The  Turk  was  anxious  to 
fortify  the  threatened  English  Government  by  prov- 
ing that,  according  to  promise,  reforms  had  been  in- 
troduced into  Asia  Elinor,  and  to  such  extent  that  travel 
had  become  perfectly  safe.  Therefore  we  had  military 
escorts  detailed  every  day  for  the  ensuing  two  months, 
the  number  ranoino^  alons^  from  ten  to  fifteen  and  reachino^ 
even  above  thirty.  However  there  were  two  drawbacks 
to  so  much  official  attention.  The  guards  were  the  very 
Basha  Bazouks  who  had  committed  the  most  hor- 
rible of  the  Bulgarian  atrocities,  and,  therefore 
been  banished  by  the  Powers  from  Europe ;  and  it 
was  necessary  sometimes  to  g-uard  ourselves  as^ainst 
them  with  a  display  of  the  only  arguments  they  consider 
conclusive.  Moreover  they  all  wanted  their  back- 
sheesh, which  we  gave  the  more  readily  since  the 
government  was  in  arrears  to  them  for  over  a  year,  and 
the  accumulating  promises  would  probably  never  be 
paid.  Once,  prol)ably  tw^ice,  and  possibly  upon  other 
occasions,  their  display  of  force  saved  us  from  attack 
by  Kurdish  and  Arab  bands  of  robbers. 

The  outfit  for  the  tour  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh  was 
very  much  less  grand  and  expensive,  barring  the  escort, 
than  the  one  which  previously  my  wife,  a  lady  com- 
panion and  self  had  arranged  in  Beirut,  Syria,  for  a 
seven  hundred  miles'  journey  through  the  Holy  Land. 
Then  we  did  as  others  do ;  secured  three  tents,  a 
dragoman,  a  cook,  a  baggage  caravan  superintendent 
and  table  servant,  a  hostler,  and  four  muleteers,  and  for 
the  use  of  all  fourteen  horses  and  mules.  At  times 
Turkish  soldiers  or  Arab  sheiks  were  engaged  as  guards, 
the  more  frequently  as  our  route  was  much  of  the  time 
away  from  and  beyond  the  lines  of  ordinary  travel. 
But  such  extravagance  is  unnecessary  in  touring  Bible 
lands,  our  kindly  advising  friends  in  Beirut  and  guide- 
books generally  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  A 
bevy  of  servants,  a  cluster  of  tents,  and  enough  impedi- 
menta to  set  up  housekeeping  comfortably  is,  indeed,  a 
very  luxurious  way  of  travelling  ;  l:>ut,  after  two  months 
of  it,  in  Syria  and  Palestine,  I  determined  to  put  this 


378  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

experience  to  some  account,  and  to  be  my  own  guide- 
book in  preparations,  when  the  time  should  come 
around  again  for  arranging  another  journey  through 
other  lands  of  sacred  story.  So  at  Baghdad  we  dis- 
carded tents,  expecting  to  use  native  houses,  khans  and 
shelters ;  bought  one  horse  each,  mine  selling  at  the 
end,  at  auction,  for  only  seven  dollars  less  than  I  paid 
for  him  ;  hired  one  servant  at  a  moderate  price,  furnish- 
ing him  with  a  horse,  and  then  arranged  for  mules  and 
their  driver  one-third  of  the  way,  but  one  mule  to  be 
used  the  second  third  of  distance,  and  for  the  last  third 
of  the  journey  it  was  thought  that  generous  saddle-bags 
would  hold  all  that  remain'ed  of  clothing  and  provisions. 
It  proved  that  this  simple  arrangement  substantially 
worked  admirably,  the  cost  not  being  over  a  third  that 
of  the  Palestine  tour,  and  the  comfort  most  of  the  way 
not  very  much  less. 

Still  previously  the  preparations  of  this  same  Pales- 
tine party  at  Cairo,  for  a  Nile  journey,  also  help  to  an 
understanding  of  Bi])le  scenes.  As,  through  an  inter- 
preter, I  bargained  in  Arabic,  and  Coptic,  and  Nubian, 
and  Abyssinian,  among  the  little  forest  of  shipping 
for  a  suitable  dahal^eeah  and  captain  and  crew,  deter- 
minedly ol)livious  to  the  modern  invention  of  steam- 
boats ;  examined  the  three-cornered  lateen  sails  as  if  the 
ship-rigging  of  the  days  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba  and  of 
Jonah  and  of  Paul  were  the  most  lately  approved  styles  ; 
and  then  on  starting  made  more  ado  over  this  river 
excursion  than  over  the  departure  from  San  Francisco 
upon  the  voyage  across  the  great  Pacific  ;  we  seemed  as 
if  transported  to  old  Scripture  times,  and  many  a  page 
of  Holy  Writ  spoke  to  us  more  freshly  and  intelligibly 
than  ever  before.  Starting  upward  from  Cairo  on  a 
dahabeeah  the  traveller  can  easily  picture  Joseph  or 
Moses  likewise  skirting  these  verdure-covered  banks 
with  their  colossal  architecture,  or  the  appearance  of  the 
ancient  commercial  fleets  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  or  the 
boats  our  Divine  Master  himself  so  often  used  upon  the 
Sea  of  Galilee.  In  Bible  lands  the  ways  of  travel,  as 
well  as  methods  of  agriculture,  of  house-building,   of 


THE    GARDEN   OF  EDEN.  379 

clothing,  of  hospitality,  and  otherwise  generally,  are  as 
they  were  thousands  of  years  ago ;  and  familiarity  with 
them  draAvs  aside  the  veil  of  sacred  history,  and  the 
persons  and  events,  that  had  seemed  to  be  so  long  ago, 
live  again  in  the  present.  We  meet  them  face  to  face  ; 
we  talk  with  them.  Well,  indeed,  for  those  who  can, 
to  visit  these  lands,  and  then  to  enable  others  to  realize 
as  vividly  as  possible  what  the  eyes  can  see  to-day  of 
the  old  imagery  of  Divine  Revelation.  In  this  direction 
there  is  need  still  for  other  contributions,  and  the 
author  of  these  pages  is  expecting  soon  to  make  one  by 
a  volume  entitled,  "  From  the  Garden  of  Eden  to  the 
Isle  of  Patmos,  —  A  Complete  Tour  of  Bible  Lands." 

Quite  confident  am  I  that  it  is  the  veritable  site  of  the 
Garden  of  Eden  I  visited,  before  ascending  the  Tigris 
and  arranoiiio'  at  Baohdad  for  the  tours  to  the  ruins  of 
Babylon  and  Nineveh.  Here,  at  the  southern  extremity 
of  Mesopotamia,  where  the  Kerkha,  Euphrates,  and 
Tigris  unite  in  forming  the  Shat-el-Arab,  the  conditions 
of  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis  are  much  more  nearly 
met  than  in  Central  Armenia.  There  the  sources  of 
the  several  designated  rivers  —  at  least  where  they  are 
large  enough  to  begin  to  be  called  "  rivers  "  —  are  from 
one  hundred  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  apart ;  here 
those  mentioned  mingle  their  waters  within  five  miles 
square,  which  is  just  about  equal  to  the  apparent  de- 
mands of  Eden,  as  a  territory  Adam  was  appointed  by 
the  Lord  "to  dress  and  keep,"  as  ground  sufficient  "to 
grow  every  tree  that  is  pleasant  to  the  sight,  and  good 
for  food,"  and  as  room  enough  for  the  bringing  together 
for  Adam  to  name  of  ''  every  beast  of  the  field  and  every 
fowl  of  the  air."  Moses  describes  the  location  as  ''east- 
ward," not  northward.  There  would  seem  no  possible 
appropriateness  in  designating  the  Armenian  Araxes  as 
the  Gihon  ''  that  compasseth  the  whole  land  of  Ethio- 
pia," since  it  flows  into  the  Caspian,  and  not  a  drop  of 
it  could  reach  Africa  except  through  the  clouds  ;  while 
the  great  Shat-el-Arab,  Avhich  our  ocean  steamship 
ascended  to  Bushra,  flows  directly  thitherward.  The 
Havileh,  compassed  by  the  Pison,  "the  gold  of  which 


380  CHKISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

land  is  good,  where  is  also  bdellium  and  the  onyx  stone," 
is  much  more  likely  to  be  Western  Persia  with  its  rich 
mineral  mountains  than  the  district  of  Armenia  lying  to 
the  east  of  the  Joruk.  This  region,  known  at  present 
as  the  Persian  provinces  of  Khuzistan  and  Luristan,  was 
the  richest  portion  of  the  ancient  Susiana.  The  river 
Kerkha  or  Choaspes,  the  present  Joab,  formerly,  it  is 
evident,  having  a  much  larger  volume  of  water,  drained 
the  opulent  neighborhoods  of  Sliushan  and  Ecbatana. 
In  that  eastward  direction,  as  I  noted  a  vast  extent  of 
country  overflowed  by  the  spring  freshets  and  doubtless 
impassable  for  most  of  the  year,  I  could  not  but  sur- 
mise whether  this  watered  plain  of  a  hundred  miles  east 
of  Eden,  and  which  under  the  sun  was  too  crlarino^  for 
the  eyes,  might  not  be  the  "flaming  sword  which  turned 
every  way  to  keep  the  way  of  the  tree  of  life."  There 
are  other  confirmatory  hints  in  Scripture  as  to  this  being 
the  actual  site  of  the  Garden  of  Eden,  as  also  in  Baby- 
lonian and  Assyrian  records  lately  excavated.  But  we 
can  linger  here  only  to  say  that  the  picture  is  perfect  of 
the  heathen  world  to-day  in  the  presence  of  Christian  Mis- 
sions. The  river  of  divine  truth  and  life  reaches  out  its 
branches  in  everj^  direction,  and  its  waters  also  are  rich 
enough  to  restore  verdure  and  fruitfulness  and  beauty  to 
all  the  surrounding  sterility  and  dreary  waste.  As  I 
watched  the  feeble  efforts  of  the  inhabitants  of  Kurnah, 
the  Turkish  village  on  Eden's  site,  to  irrigate  their  land 
from  the  river  bank,  it  seemed  so  like  the  best  the  world 
can  do  with  Christ  unaided  by  other  wisdom  and  other 
power.  Let  this  eastern  Chaldean  plain  be  enabled  to 
utilize  the  richness  of  these  waters,  and  again  it  will  be 
the  garden  of  the  world.  I  know  of  no  location  compar- 
able to  it  in  its  agricultural  possibilities.  And  so,  though 
it  may  be  a  somewhat  humbling  thought  to  our  American 
and  European  pride,  it  is  evident  there  are  among  heathen 
and  anti-christian  peoples  intellectual  and  moral  capaci- 
ties lying  sterile  and  waste,  that  can,  yea,  and  they  Avill, 
under  the  influence  of  divine  truth  and  life,  make  the 
garden  of  this  spiritual  world,  its  peerless  Eden.  The 
leadership  at  present  in  christian  character  and  enter- 


RUINS   OF   BABYLON.  381 

prise  is  wisely  intrusted  of  God  to  Anglo-Saxon,  Teu- 
ton, and  Latin  races,  1)ut  in  coming  time  we  may  antici- 
pate demand  for  other  qualifications  in  leadership  to 
higher  pastures  on  the  mount  of  God,  and  it  has  seemed 
to  me  very  probal)le  that  they  will  be  found  among  the 
Shemites  and  ^Mongolians. 

We  are  roaming  to-day  amid  the  great  ruins  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar's palace  in  Ba]\ylon.  From  their  summits 
our  eyes  range  again  and  again  over  the  vast  plain  upon 
both  sides  of  the  Euphrates,  which  was  once  covered  to 
the  extent  of  sixty  miles  in  circumference  with  one  of 
the  most  magnificent  cities  the  world  has  ever  known. 
I  could  trace  at  many  points  the  remains  of  its  enor- 
mous wall,  350  feet  in  height,  and  endeavored  to  real- 
ize how  that  it  contained  twice  the  amount  of  masonry 
of  the  great  wall  of  China.  There  are  numerous  mounds 
in  sight,  evidently  artificial,  that  prol:)a])ly  contain  treas- 
ures of  inestimable  value  to  the  arch^ologist  and  the 
student  of  God's  Word.  A  gang  of  workmen  beneath 
us  are  quarrying  brick  for  buikling  purposes  in  Hillah, 
the  modern  city  five  miles  to  the  south,  and  occupying, 
perhaps,  the  neighborhood  of  the  great  bridge  in  ancient 
Babylon.  Thus  probably  it  has  been  going  on  for  2,000 
years,  and  from  these  fifteen  miles  square  have  the  ma- 
terials been  furnished  for  the  construction  of  Seleucia, 
Ctesiphon,  Baghdad,  and  many  other  cities.  As,  over 
the  great  heaps  of-  ru])}Hsh  and  Ixmks  of  drifted  sand, 
rooms  and  halls,  corridors  and  vestibules  of  this  royal 
palace  are  searched,  anon  we  seem  to  hear  the  proud 
footsteps  of  the  monarch  ;  yes,  and  from  this  archway, 
facing  the  hanging  gardens,  still  beyond  the  palatial 
government  buildings,  and  yet  further  on  to  the  south- 
west the  tower  of  Babel,  he  may  have  been  gazing, 
when  he  uttered  those  boastful  words  which  God  so  sig- 
nally rebuked  —  "  Is  not  this  great  Babylon  that  /  have 
built  for  the  house  of  the  kingdom,  by  the  might  of  my 
power,  and  for  the  honor  of  my  majesty?"  And  this 
was  the  same  heaven  over  our  heads,  from  whence 
the  voice  instantly  fell,  saying,  "  O  King  Nebuchadnez- 
zar, to  thee  it  is  spoken ;  The  kingdom  is  departed  from 


382  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

thee  ....  until  thou  know  that  the  Most  High  ruleth 
in  the  kingdom  of  men,  and  giveth  it  to  whomsoever  he 
will." 

Passing  from  the  southern  to  the  western  portion  of 
the  palace  ruins,  where,  facing  the  river,  it  seemed  most 
likely  the  banqueting-room  was  located,  in  which  Bel- 
shazzar  gave  his  great  feast  to  a  thousand  of  his  lords, 
it  was  easy  with  Bible  in  hand  to  reanimate  the  scene, 
to  range  around  the  royal  tables  the  bacchanalian  throng 
with  the  king,  his  princes,  wives  and  concubines  as  the 
central  group.  Perhaps  through  yonder  archway  the 
servants  brought  the  golden  vessels,  which  Nebuchad- 
nezzar had  taken  from  the  temple  at  Jerusalem.  And, 
as  therefrom  they  impiously  drank,  these  very  walls 
heard  their  shouts  of  praise  to  the  gods  of  gold  and 
silver  and  brass,  and  of  iron  and  wood  and  stone. 
Above  this  very  spot  may  have  stood  the  candlestick  or 
candelabrum,  over  against  which,  right  there,  the  words 
—  "Mene,  Mene,  Tekel,  Upharsin."  Through  yonder 
vestibule  Daniel  is  ushered  to  read  and  to  interpret  the 
strange  writing  of  Jehovah's  hand.  But  already  the 
Medo-Persian  army  has  entered  the  city.  Three  walls 
surround  the  palace  and  its  drunken  blasphemous 
revellers ;  an  impregnable  fortress.  The  like  of  these 
walls  has  never  been  built ;  the  outer  six  miles  in  cir- 
cumference, and  towering  to  a  giddy  height ;  the  two 
within  covered  with  pictures  in,  stone,  and  meant  to 
bear  record  for  all  time  to  the  glories  of  the  Babylonian 
dynasty.  Surely,  though  God  has  spoken,  and  his 
servant  has  interpreted,  the  impious  heathen  feast  need 
not  be  disturbed.  Nevertheless  —  "  In  that  night  was 
Belshazzar  the  king  of  the  Chaldeans  slain." 

The  structure  of  the  "Hanging  Gardens,"  ranked  as 
one  of  the  "s€ven  wonders  of  the  world,"  is  a  more 
complete  ruin  than  Nebuchadnezzar's  palace.  It  is 
simply  a  massive  pile  of  broken  brick,  fifty  feet  high 
and  covering  several  acres.  When  in  all  its  glory,  it 
stood  a  thousand  feet  on  each  of  its  four  sides,  the  walls 
of  twenty-two  feet  in  thickness  rising,  terrace  above 
terrace,  to  the  height  of  four  hundred  feet.     It  was  an 


HANGING    GARDENS    AND    LIONS'    DEN.  883 

artificial  mountain,  covered  with  flowers  and  trees,  to 
reconcile  Nebuchadnezzar's  queen  Amytis  to  her  new 
home  in  the  Chaldean  plain,  so  different  from  the 
mountain  scenery  of  her  native  Ecbatana.  In  this  build- 
ing probably  was  the  den  of  lions  into  which  Daniel  was 
cast  by  the  command  of  Darius.  It  is  marked  by  an 
immense  block  of  granite  statuary,  lately  discovered, 
representing  an  unhurt  man  of  Jewish  features  between 
the  paws  and  under  the  closed  mouth  of  an  enormous 
Hon.  This  for  some  enterprising  nation  is  an  ac- 
quisition of  greater  value  than  the  Egyptian  obelisk 
recently  transported  to  the  Central  Park  of  New  York. 
What  a  lesson  was  taught  of  faith  in  God  here  within 
perhaps  fifty  feet  of  where  we  stand,  and  in  a  dungeon 
beneath  yet  to  be  uncovered  !  Full  well  doubtless  the 
prophet  kncAV  of  this  horrible  den,  and  that  to  its  savage 
monsters  he  would  be  throw^n,  if  he  persisted  in  obeying 
God  rather  than  man.  How  he  was  to  escape,  or 
whether  he  was  to  escape  at  all  he  had  no  assurance 
but  he  knew  he  was  safe  in  the  line  of  duty,  and  that 
there  were  eternal  interests  of  far  greater  moment  than 
flesh  can  feel  or  mortal  eye  can  see.  Strengthened  hy 
the  example  of  Daniel's  faith  many  a  missionary  has 
entered  the  fiercer  dungeons  of  heathenism,  and  lived  to 
testify  —  ^  God  has  sent  his  angel,  and  no  harm  has 
befallen  me.'  This  mountain-like  structure,  where, 
despite  all  its  idolatries  and  sensualities  and  pride  and 
horrors,  God's  keeping  angel  spent  that  memorable 
night,  was  referred  to  in  the  words  recorded  by  Jere- 
miah— "Behold,  I  am  against  thee,  O  destroying 
mountain,  saith  the  Lord,  which  destroy  est  all  the 
earth ;  and  I  will  stretch  out  my  hand  upon  thee,  and 
roll  thee  down  from  the  rocks,  and  will  make  thee  a 
burnt  mountain." 

A  little  over  half  a  mile  still  farther  south  are  ruins 
even  more  extensive  than  those  of  either  the  royal 
palace  or  the  hanging  gardens.  Layard  has  identified 
them  as  belonging  in  part  to  Daniel's  official  residence. 
Here  scientific  explorations  are  going  on  at  present,  and 
it  is  reasonable  to  expect  that  much  valuable  informa- 


384  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

tion  will  be  found  regarding  the  Jewish  captivity  in 
Babylon.  This  is  probably  the  site  of  a  cluster  ot 
government  buildings,  all  easy  of  access  to  him,  who 
under  Darius  was  the  chief  of  the  presidents  over  all  the 
princes  of  the  realm.  The  most  likely  place  for  Daniel's 
palace,  as  opening  out  toward  the  royal  residence,  the 
river  and  the  hanging  gardens,  is  the  northwest  corner 
of  these  several  acres  of  ruins.  Here  his  windows 
would  have  faced  Jerusalem,  especially  those  which  to 
the  west  would  the  more  probably  have  belonged  to  his 
private  apartments,  as  being  the  most  secluded.  Upon 
the  roofs  of  yonder  buildings  just  below  the  wicked 
conspirators  may  have  watched  for  the  opening  of  the 
window  of  prayer.  Did  he  see  them?  It  made  no 
difierence.  The  associations  of  the  spot  on  which  I 
stood  were  so  hallowing,  that  I  closed  my  Bible, 
turned  my  face  toward  the  upper  —  the  heavenly  Jeru- 
salem, and  prayed  for  a  larger  measure  of  the  heroism 
of  o^odlv  faith,  and  that  the  thousand  foreio^n  mission- 
aries  I  had  been  visiting  the  year  past  might  all  have  the 
continual  support  of  the  almighty  arm  as  had  Daniel, 
might  as  consistently  live  before  their  enemies  and  an 
unbelieving  world,  and  might  likewise  realize  that  their 
times  of  greatest  service  to  the  cause  are  their  times  of 
greatest  trial. 

The  Hillah  pasha's  hospitality  was  very  acceptable, 
especially  as  it  guaranteed  additional  safety  among  the 
lawless  tribes,  which,  like  wild  beasts,  lurk  among  the 
ruins  of  Babylon.  A  captain  of  his  guards  was  detailed 
to  accompany  us  everywhere  until  the  return  to  Bagh- 
dad. The  mayor  of  the  city  was  constantly  on  the 
alert  to  see  that  every  want  was  supplied,  and  many 
of  the  officials  called  to  add  their  cordialities.  All  the 
way  up,  however,  from  bootl)lack  to  Pasha,  it  was  evi- 
dent that  a  liberal  backsheesh  was  expected  either  in 
money  or  political  influence.  Affjiirs  in  government 
circles  are  plainly  very  much  unsettled,  and  officials  of 
all  ranks  are  grasping  at  straws.  The  conviction  pre- 
vails that  the  time  is  near  when  foreign  power  will  be- 
come supreme  in  Turkey,   and  the  acquaintance   and 


TOWER   OF   BABEL.  385 

gratitude  of  any  passing  European  or  American  traveller 
may  prove  a  wise  investment.  It  was  a  relief  at  times 
to  get  away  from  so  much  attention,  and  stroll  down 
along  the  quiet  banks  of  the  Euphrates.  Here  the  cap- 
tive Hebrews  hung  their  harps  upon  the  willows,  and 
wept  as  they  remembered  Zion.  How  much  recalling 
there  must  have  beeii  here  of  the  ^^ay  the  Lord  had  led 
them  out  from  Egypt,  through  the  wilderness,  and  dur- 
ing their  sojourn  in  the  land  of  promise.  How  plain  it 
must  have  appeared  to  the  thoughtful,  that  the  disasters 
which  had  befallen  them  were  their  own  responsibility. 
How  bitter  must  have  been  the  tears  here  shed,  how 
broJven-hearted  and  contrite  many  of  the  vows,  and  how 
earnest  the  supplications.  Is  not  God's  spiritual  Israel 
largely  to-day  in  bondage  to  the  great  world  power? 
Is  not  much  of  the  Christian  Church  of  the  present 
to  be  found  in  Babylon  ?  So  much  selfishness  of  wor- 
ship ;  so  little  interest  in  world  evangelization  ;  so  much 
neglect  of  prayer  and  of  God's  Word  ;  so  much  compro- 
mise with  sin  in  business,  in  society,  in  public  amuse- 
ments ;  so  much  vanity  of  dress  and  personal  adornment ; 
so  much  satisfaction  with  the  mere  superficial  formalities 
of  religion  :  —  would  to  God  that  all  our  harps  were 
hung  upon  the  willows  !  Profitable,  indeed,  would  it 
be  to  our  modem  Christianity,  if  largely  for  a  while 
tears  could  take  the  place  of  our  giddy  mirth,  memories 
of  Zion  could  supplant  the  frivolities  of  the  world,  and 
from  the  banks  of  a  Euphrates,  not  far  from  multitudes 
of  us,  a  new  life  could  be  begun  in  the  freedom  there  is 
in  Christ  Jesus. 

Birs  Nimroud,  to  the  extreme  southwest  of  Baby- 
lon, thirteen  miles  in  a  direct  line  from  the  royal  palace, 
conspicuous  from  all  parts  of  the  vast  city,  is  the 
ruin  of  the  oldest  existing  monument  of  man,  the 
tower  of  Babel.  It  was  2,000  feet  in  circumference, 
and  600  feet  in  heisfht,  beino^  152  feet  hiofher  than  St. 
Peter's  at  Rome,  196  feet  loftier  than  St.  Paul's  at  Lon- 
don, outreaching  towards  the  skies  the  Strasburg  Cathe- 
dral by  139  ieet,  and  the  dome  of  the  Capitol  at  Wash- 
ington by  250  feet.     Nimroud  commenced  this  tower, 


386  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

and  Nebuchadnezzar  finished  it.  Xerxes,  and  since  him 
the  still  more  despotic  king  Time  have  reduced  the 
great  eight-storied  Belus-crowned  sanctuary,  mausoleum, 
and  observatory  to  an  almost  utter  ruin.  I  could  see 
the  stamp  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  name  upon  many  of  the 
bricks,  and  watched  with  intense  interest  the  extensive 
excavations  which  are  in  progress.  Within  some  of 
these  massive  walls  may  yet  be  discovered  records  of 
incalculable  value  in  connection  with  the  Pentateuch. 
In  sight,  still  farther  to  the  southwest,  is  the  great 
mosque,  enclosing  the  prol:>able  tomb  of  the  prophet 
Ezekiel.  A  half  mile  to  the  north  of  Birs  Nimroud  are 
other  extensive  ruins,  presumably  of  palaces  and  tem- 
ples. It  is  the  traditional  place  where  Shadrach,  Me- 
shech,  and  Abednego  were  cast  into  the  fiery  furnace. 
Their  long  venerated  tombs  will  be  shown  us,  together 
with  that  of  Daniel,  when  w^e  shall  reach  Ervil,  the  an- 
cient Arbela,  three  hundred  miles  to  the  north. 

We  have  passed  it,  and  the  neighboring  battle-field 
where  the  colossal  Persian  empire  was  shattered  by 
Alexander,  and  are  spending  a  Aveek  amid  the  ruins  of 
ancient  Nineveh.  Kuyunjek,  Ninn-oud,  Karmeles  and 
Khorsabad,  the  four  gorgeous  palace-crowned  corners 
of  the  vast  Assyrian  capital,  how  familiar  have  their 
names  become.  Within  also  this  sixty  miles'  circuit  of 
ruins,  what  impressive  lessons  upon  the  fulfilment  of 
Scripture  prophecy ;  what  vivid  illustration  of  the  fatal 
defect  of  any  national  life,  however  advanced  its  civiliza- 
tion, if  there  l^e  no  knowledge  and  fellowship  of  the 
true  God ;  what  folly  for  man  to  live  for  himself,  and 
to  seek  to  build  for  lasting  monuments  with  other  than 
the  imperishable  materials  of  human  minds  and  hearts 
and  characters.  The  most  humble  self-denying  mis- 
sionary of  the  Cross,  toiling  for  souls  in  the  most  lone- 
some station  of  all  heathen  lands,  is  building  more 
grandly  that  did  either  Sennacherib  or  Asshur-bani-pal 
upon  this  vast  mound  of  Kuyunjek.  Here,  upon  the 
walls  of  their  palaces,  and  over  the  stone  records  of 
their  lives,  so  largely  transported  to  the  British  Museum 
in  London,  I  have  studied  for  many  days  with  intense 


NINEVEH   AND   ITS    SITUATION.  387 

curiosity.  Nevertheless,  what  did  they  amount  to,  after 
all  the  immense  power  for  good  with  which  Providence 
had  intrusted  them  ?  Almost  nothing.  A  great  many 
lion  hunts,  and  slaughters  of  their  fellow-men,  and  vain 
displays  of  power  and  wealth.  God  overruled  the  mili- 
tary ambition  of  these  Assyrian  monarchs  to  further  his 
purposes  toward  his  chosen  people,  yet  how  wretchedly 
poverty-stricken  they  entered  upon  the  spirit  life,  when 
they  left  these  gorgeous  palaces  and  this  city  of  such 
marvellous  beauty  of  location  and  such  prodigious  ex- 
penditure of  art. 

Yes,  beautiful  indeed  for  situation  was  the  proud 
capital  of  ancient  Assyria.  I  never  wearied  studying 
this  feature  of  the  scene.  Though  the  hospitality  of 
the  British  Consul,  son  of  the  celebrated  war  correspon- 
dent, Russell,  was  most  delightful  across  the  Tigris,  in 
Mosul,  each  morning  I  hastened  away  to  some  lofty 
point  of  the  ruins  of  Sennacherib's  palace,  or  other 
eminence,  to  study  the  site,  unrivalled  by  that  of  any 
other  inland  city  in  the  world.  To  the  west  flows  the 
broad  rapid  river  from  Mount  Mphates  to  the  Chaldean 
plain,  once  laden  with  the  commerce  of  Assyria, 
Babylonia,  and  Susiana.  To  the  east,  beyond  Khor- 
sabad  and  Karmeles,  rise  mountains,  some  of  them 
covered  with  verdure,  others  most  picturesquely  barren 
and  rugged,  and  still  others  crowned  with  snow.  The 
spurs  of  this  mountain  range  come  down  to  the  banks 
of  the  Tigris  upon  the  north,  while  southward  and  west- 
ward the  distant  prospects  are  more  open,  a  perfect 
picture  of  hills  and  valleys,  mountains  and  plains,  and 
at  this  time  ripening  fields  of  Avaving  grain.  At  first 
the  site  of  Nineveh,  inside  the  walls,  which  are  easily 
traced,  appears  to  be  a  quite  level  plain,  but  this  is 
chiefly  an  illusion  from  the  great  surrounding  contrasts, 
which  heightens  the  effect  as  gradually  the  extensive 
variety  of  lesser  hills  and  valleys  appears.  As  doubt- 
less artificial  streams  from  the  river  Avere  made  to 
flow  through  many  of  these  windings  of  the  city,  and 
little  lakes  here  and  there  ornamented  the  grounds  of 
royalty,  nobility,  and  of  the  wealthier   classes,   and   as 


388  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

those  hundreds  of  hillocks,  dotting  the  prospect  enclosed 
by  the  walls  of  12  by  18  miles,  were  crowned  by  villas 
and  stately  palaces,  the  prospect  must  indeed  have  been 
enchanting.  No  wonder  that  proudly  it  was  looked  upon 
by  Asshur-izir-pal,  Shalmaneser,  Tiglathpileser  and 
Esar-haddon,  from  Nimroud,  as  well  as  by  Sennacherib 
and  Sardanapalus,  from  Kuyunjek. 

Excavations  under  competent  direction  continue, 
though  confined  at  present  to  Sennacherib's  palace.  Other 
libraries  in  the  cuneiform  character  upon  clay  tablets, 
fully  as  extensive  as  that  of  Asshur-bani-pal,  and  6ther 
records  equally  valuable  to  those  of  the  Assyrian 
traditions  of  the  deluge,  in  all  probability,  are  w^aiting 
in  these  vast  mounds  to  be  uncovered.  Under  what 
great  obligation,  after  all,  is  the  Christian  world  to  those 
old  Assj^'ian  despots, — nay,  the  rather  to  God,  who 
overruled  their  pride,  so  that  in  our  day,  when  most 
needed,  the  dust  of  2,500  years  is  yielding  up  volumes 
of  Bible  evidences  which  cannot  be  refuted.  It  is  not, 
however,  our  purpose  or  opportunity  to  linger  here 
over  the  deeply  interesting  and  invaluable  results  of 
Assyrian  research.  We  can  only  in  passing  alight  a 
moment  in  the  vestibule  of  this  great  temple  of  antiquity, 
and,  recalling  Herodotus,  and  Ctesias,  and  Diodorus, 
and  thinking  of  the  researches  of  Layard,  and  Rassam, 
and  Smith,  open  our  Bible,  the  best  guide-book  in  Bible 
lands,  and  take  a  glance  over  the  fomiliar  prophecies  of 
Isaiah,  and  Jonah,  and  Nahum,  and  Zephaniah. 
"  Wherefore  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that,  when  the  Lord 
hath  performed  his  whole  work  upon  Mount  Zion  and 
on  Jerusalem,  I  will  punish  the  fruit  of  the  stout  heart 
of  the  King  of  Assyria,  and  the  glory  of  his  high  looks. 
For  he  saith,  ^  By  the  strength  of  my  hand  I  have  done 
it,  and  by  my  wisdom.  .  .  .  And  my  hand  hath  found, 
as  a  nest,  the  riches  of  the  people  ;  and  as  one  gathereth 
eggs  that  are  left,  have  I  gathered  all  the  earth.'" 
"And  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  unto  Jonah  the 
second  time,  saying,  'Arise,  go  unto  Nineveh,  that 
great  city,  and  preach  unto  it  the  preaching  that  I  bid 
thee.'"     "Thy  shepherds  slumber,  O  King  of  Assyria; 


THE    GOOD-BY    OF    A    NATIVE    PREACHER.  389 

thy  nobles  shall  dwell  in  the  dust."  "This  is  the 
rejoicing  city  that  dwelt  carelessly ;  that  said  in  her 
heart,  I  am,  and  there  is  none  beside  me  !  How  is  she 
become  a  desolation,  a  place  for  beasts  to  lie  down  in! 
She  obeyed  not  the  voice  ;  she  received  not  correction  ; 
she  trusted  not  in  the  Lord ;  she  drew  not  near  to  her 
God." 

The  last  good-by  to  Nineveh  I  never  can  forget. 
Others  had  said  cordial  words.  A  goodly  company  had 
followed  us  from  the  consulate,  through  the  bazaars,  over 
the  bridge,  past  Jonah's  tomb  and  the  ruins  of  Kuyunjek. 
But  they  had  all  turned  back,  excepting  one,  who  still 
walked  by  my  side.  He  had  no  horse  —  too  poor  to 
own  one  ;  therefore  I  had  not  yet  mounted.  Our  hearts 
had  become  knit  together,  as  the  hearts  of  David  and 
Jonathan.  He  Avas  the  native  missionary  of  the  Ameri- 
can Board,  the  only  one  within  150  miles  from  Mosul. 
With  him  in  his  humble  home,  in  his  schools,  and  in  the 
dwellings  of  some  of  his  parishioners,  I  had  learned  to  lave 
him  and  his  work.  At  last  we  came  to  the  northern 
limits  of  the  ruins  of  Nineveh.  *"I  must  go  ]:)ack  now," 
he  said,  "to  my  work  among  the  ruins  of  my  fellow- 
countrymen's  souls.  Pray  for  me  that  my  work  may  be 
God's  work,  and  not  man's  work.  Pray  that  it  may  not 
be  like  that  of  these  old  Assyrian  Kings."  Then  the 
good  man,  in  Oriental  fashion,  kissed  me  upon  both 
cheeks,  leaving  a  moisture  behind  that  was  not  perspira- 
tion, and  we  separated  never  to  meet  until  in  mansions 
of  the  Father's  house  above,  infinitely  more  glorious  than 
those  of  Sennacherib  and  Sardanapalus,  and  in  a  city 
infinitely  more  lustrous  with  gold  and  all  manner  of  pre- 
cious stones  than  ever  was  Nineveh  or  Babylon. 

Memories  of  Ararat  and  Nesibis ;  of  the  home  lands 
of  Abraham  and  Job,  of  Eebekah  and  Rachel ;  of  the  ter- 
rible famine  scenes  in  Kurdistan  ;  of  nearly  fatal  illness 
at  Djizireh ;  of  strange  experiences  at  Bijirek ;  of  the 
extensive  and  mysterious  ruins  of  Yeran  Sheraz ;  of 
Aleppo  —  which  certainly  should  be  reoccupied  by  the 
American  Board  —  and  Antioch,  and  from  memory  and 
note-books  full  of  other  like  data  Ave  must  turn  to  facts 


390  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

and  observations  bearing  strictly  upon  modern  Christian 
Missions  in  these  Bible  lands. 

Yet  one  glance  at  Jerusalem,  and  from  this  summit  of 
Olivet,  which  has  been  our  tented  home  for  a  week. 
Other  scenes  throughout  the  Holy  Land  have  had  their 
interest,  but  none  to  compare  with  this.  From  Lebanon 
to  Carmel,  from  Joppa  to  Hebron,  from  visions  of  Petra 
and  Sinai  to  those  of  Pisgah  and  Hermon,  scores  of 
places  and  prospects  of  thrilling  interest  to  the  Bible 
student,  but  here  is  the  culmination  of  all.  Here  the 
impressions  from  so  many  clustered  associations  of 
matchless  import  are  absolutely  overwhelming  to  the 
devout  spirit.  It  is  needful  to  take  them  singly  ;  — for 
one  passing  moment  only  one  —  Christ  weeping  here 
over  yonder  Jerusalem.  Perhaps  he  was  passing  around 
this  very  mound  on  his  way  from  Bethany,  and  his  tender, 
loving  heart  was  recalling  those  words  he  had  uttered, 
"How  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together, 
even  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings  ! " 

"  He  wept  that  we  might  weep." 

There  are  not  tears  enough  in  world  evangelization  to- 
day. The  question  is  riot  one  of  temperament,  for  the 
strong-minded  apostle  Paul,  capa1)le  of  extraordinary 
self-mastery,  testifies  of  his  "many  tears"  over  incon- 
sistent christians  and  ungodly  people.  The  terrible 
condition  of  hundreds  of  millions  in  heathen  and  anti- 
christian  nations,  yes,  and  of  scores  of  millions  in 
Christendom  living  without  God,  without  hope,  and 
soon  to  die,  is  contemplated  by  the  Church  with  too 
much  composure.  The  "body  of  Christ"  is  dealing 
with  the  question  of  the  salvation  of  lost  man  too  pro- 
fessionally. Much  of  the  preaching,  Avhich  is  most 
scriptural  and  sincere  and  intelligent,  is  not  tender 
enough.  There  is  pathos  of  sentiment,  but  not  enough 
of  the  pathos  of  heart.  The  burden  of  both  home  and 
foreign  missions  rests  far  too  lightly  even  upon  the  majority 
of  the  ministry  and  the  most  pious  of  the  lait}^  If  they 
only  —  the  Gideon  band  of  the  L^niversal  Church  —  felt 
as  Paul  felt,  and  as  Christ  felt  over  sinners  :  if  it  was 


A   SERAPENUM   IN    EGYPT.  391 

their  experience  "  out  of  much  affliction  and  anguish  of 
heart"  to  communicate  ''  with  many  tears"  regarding  the 
wayward  and  the  lost ;  if  their  hearts  would  almost  break 
as  did  the  Master's,  and  they  would  "weep"  over  the 
multitudes  neglecting  so  great  salvation,  a  vast  increase 
of  spiritual  power  would  come  to  all  evangelization. 
The  world  might  call  it  weak,  but  it  would  be  a  marvel- 
lous increase  of  efficiency.  This  has  seemed  to  me  to  be 
better  appreciated  by  the  missionary  body,  than  by  the 
home  laborers.  And  thus  largely  would  I  account  for 
the  greater  relative  success  of  their  efforts  to  win  souls. 
It  is  not  that  it  is  easier  to  win  a  heathen  soul.  Oh,  no  ! 
The  facility  is  on  the  other  side.  But  away  in  the 
darkness  of  paganism  the  missionaries  are  thrown  more 
on  God,  and  they  agonize  more  even  unto  w^eeping  over 
perishing  souls.  They  the  more  often  have  their 
sheaves,  while  ^vq  the  more  frequently  only  our  gleanings, 
for  they  have  ^earned  better  those  two  promises  of  God's 
Word;  "They  that  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in  joy." 
And — "He  that  goeth  forth  and  weepeth,  bearing 
precious  seed,  shall  doubtless  come  again  with  rejoicing, 
bringing  his  sheaves  with  him." 

One  moment  more,  and  at  Memphis  in  Egypt.  Our 
dahabeeah  lies  behind  us,  moored  to  the  left  bank  of  the 
Nile.  From  the  great  Ghizeh  pyramid  yonder,  a  part  of 
the  necropolis  of  this  once  mammoth  city,  we  have 
looked  northward  over  Cairo  and  the  Inroad  verdure- 
covered  delta,  and  southward  toward  Abydos,  and 
Denderah,  and  Luxor,  and  Thebes.  We  pass  the  pros- 
trate Colossus  of  Rameses  11. ,  his  face  in  a  pool  of  mud, 
—  satire  indeed,  as  it  has  been  called,  upon  the  great 
Sesostris,  the  tyrant  over  Israel.  We  enter  the  subter- 
ranean Serapenum,  where  the  most  sacred  mummies  of 
Egypt  were  interred.  Fit  symbols,  these  forms  without 
life,  these  carefully  preserved  corpses,  embalmed,  and 
wrapt  around  so  firmly,  fit  symbols  of  any  church  life, 
or  individual  christian  life,  that  is  so  all  wrapt  up  in 
self,  and  so  self-preserved,  as  to  be  in  no  practical 
sympathy  with  home  and  foreign  missions. 


392  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  XXm. 

THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE  AKD  ARABIA. 

jHE  founder  of  the  still  lingering  dynasty 
at  Constantinople  was  Othman,  or  Osman, 
during  the  early  part  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  His  name  attaches  both  to  the 
ruling  class  and  to  the  empire,  in  that  the 
former  always  call  themselves  Osmanlis, 
and  the  latter  is  generally  designated  as  the 
Ottoman.  Othman's  father  and  his  fellow-clansmen 
were  nomads  of  Khorasan,  and  came  drifting  \restAvard 
into  Asia  Minor  at  the  very  time  when  the  Sultan  of 
Iconium,  a  Turk  or  Seljuk,  needed  assistance  against  his 
enemies.  The  reward  for  the  valuable  service  rendered 
was  the  rule  over  a  small  territory  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  Hellespont.  The  enterprising  son,  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  unsettled  condition  of  surrounding  tribes, 
gained  considerable  accessions  by  conquest,  and  made 
Broussa  his  capital.  Othman's  successors  extended  the 
supremacy  of  the  Osmanlis  across  the  Hellespont,  seized 
Adrianople  in  1361,  and  continued  the  conquest  of  the 
Byzantine  provinces,  until  in  1453  Constantinople  sur- 
rendered to  Sultan  Mohammed  II.  When  we  visited 
this  latter  city,  and  stood  within  the  vast  and  majestic 
temple  of  St.  Sophia,  we  recalled  with  burning  indig- 
nation the  bloodthirsty  success  of  that  terrible  ^Moslem 
leader  over  this  nominally  christian  capital,  and  his  en- 
trance through  yonder  portal,  on  horseback  with  drawn 
sword,  commanding  his  followers  to  slay  all  the 
thousands  of  men,  women  and  children,  who  had  fled 
for  refuge  to  this  sanctuary.  It  was  even  more  hor- 
rible   than  the   massacre   of   Cawnpore.     The    animus 


CONSTANTINOPLE.  393 

was  shown  in  the  order  Mohammed  II.  then  gave  to 
destroy  every  evidence  that  this  grand  religious  structure 
had  ever  been  used  for  christian  worship.  The  mo' 
saics,  which  doubtless  represented  saints  and  scenes 
of  christian  history,  were  plat^tered  over,  and  every 
trace  of  the  cross  was  removed.  But  there  was  one 
token  of  the  piety  of  the  imperial  builder,  Justinian, 
which  Moslem  fanaticism  could  not  remove.  Into  the 
mortar,  with  which  the  stones  and  bricks  of  the 
sanctuary  were  laid,  was  poured  a  large  quantity  of 
fragrant  liquids,  even  as  upon  Christ's  head  by  the 
woman  that  ala])aster  box  of  precious  ointment.  This 
tribute  of  love  to  the  crucified  Redeemer  is  said  by 
repairing  masons  still  to  linger  in  the  walls  of  this 
principal  mosque  of  the  world  of  Islam.  Pleasant 
thoufifht  that  such  frasf ranee  sho'ild  remain  throusrh  all 
these  centuries  of  desecration,  to  mingle  with  the  in- 
cense of  the  sacrifices  of  grateful  hearts,  when  in  turn 
the  Crescent  shall  give  place  to  the  Cross,  and  the  true 
"prophet,  priest  and  king"  shall  again  be  worshipped 
in  St.  Sophia. 

xdeanwhile  the  power  of  the  Osmanlis  was  extended 
in  Asia  Minor.  In  the  16th  century  Selim  conquered 
Armenia  and  Mesopotamia,  Syria  and  Egypt.  He 
secured  also  from  the  Sheriff"  of  Mecca  the  formal 
authority  for  himself  and  his  successors  to  be  the  head 
of  the  Mahometan  world.  Under  Soliman  "the  mag- 
nificent" the  Ottoman  empire  was  greatly  prospered, 
reaching  the  zenith  of  its  grandeur  a  half  century 
after  the  discovery  of  America.  The  fall,  which  has 
continued  ever  since,  began  with  the  victory  over  the 
Turks  by  Sobieski,  in  the  battle  of  Vienna,  1683. 
Europe  had  not  experienced  a  greater  relief  since  the 
triumph  of  Charles  iNIartel  at  Tours.  The  power  of 
Islam  was  the  sword,  and  that  power  at  last  was  broken. 
In  Europe  it  has  ever  since  been  on  the  defensive. 
Many  years  ago  the  0th man  dynasty  would  have 
perished  from  its  own  inherent  weaknesses  and  corrup- 
tions, to  say  nothing  of  Russian,  Austrian  and  Greek 
aggressions,  had  it  not  been  for  the  supposed  political 


394  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

interests  of  Great  Britain  and  other  christian  powers  to 
postpone  the  inevita])ic  collapse.  To  add  the  testimony 
of  General  Lake,  an  English  officer :  '^  The  result  of 
this  has  been  to  give  to  a  small  dominant  class  in  Turkey 
complete  impunity  in  nuiintaining  an  execrable  system 
of  administration,  tainted  by  wholesale  corruption  and 
extortion,  and  to  perpetuate  the  misery  and  degradation 
of  a  very  large  rural  population,  who,  whether  they  are 
Mahometans  or  Christians,  have  suffered  equally  from 
the  rapacity  of  corrupt  officials,  and  the  merciless  ex- 
tortion of  the  farmers  of  the  taxes." 

The  present  political  and  social  condition  of  the 
Turkish  empire  is  extremely  deplorable.  Its  territory 
from  the  Danu])e  to  the  Xile,  and  from  the  Black  Sea  to 
the  Persian  Gulf,  is  more  richly  furnished  with  natural 
facilities  for  agriculture  and  commerce,  and  probably 
for  manufacturing  also,  than  an  equal  amount  located  in 
any  other  part  of  the  world.  For  beauty  of  scenery, 
mountain  grandeur,  variations  of  climate,  and  natural 
facilities  for  intercommunication,  these  lands  of  the 
Crescent  are  unsurpassed  upon  the  globe.  Under  good 
government,  and  with  a  true  christian  civilization,  vast 
tracts  of  waste  land  would  l)e  l)rought  back  to  fertility, 
forests  would  again  clothe  the  hills  and  ornament  the 
plains,  and  the  average  climate  Avould  be  rendered  more 
salubrious  than  that  of  Italy.  By  travellers,  who  have 
simply  sweltered  in  Egypt,  visited  the  neighborhood  of 
Jerusalem,  and  coasted  along  the  barren  headlands  of 
Asia  Minor,  a  very  different  impression  is  received, 
than  when  researches  are  extended  into  Kurdistan  and 
Northern  Syria,  Armenia,  Galilee,  Lydia,  Macedonia, 
and  Bosnia.  Notwithstanding  the  large  tracts  of  waste 
territory  under  Ottoman  rule,  I  observe  that  my  note- 
books here  contain  far  more  exclamations  of  surprise 
and  pleasure  among  natural  resources  of  beauty  and 
wealth,  and  comfort,  than  in  any  other  countries  around 
the  world.  But  the  wretched  populations  are  not 
allowed  to  appreciate  all  these  extraordinary,  these  un- 
rivalled advantages.  For  centuries  they  have  so  suffered 
under  tyranny  and  lawlessness,  that  they  are  reduced  in 


RESULTS  OF  TURKISH  MISRULE.         395 

the  struggle  for  bare  existence  to  the  robbing  of  nature 
and  the  robliing  of  each  other.  Of  the  squalid  poverty 
and  beastly  wretchedness  of  the  vast  majority  of  those 
under  Turkish  dominion,  the  outside  world  has  very 
little  conception.  The  average  of  American  hogs  are 
better  fed  and  sheltered,  and  an  ordinary  negro  cabin  in 
our  southern  states  in  slavery  times  would  be  considered 
a  luxurious  palace  in  the  majority  of  the  rural  villages. 
The  present  scantiness  of  the  population  can  thus  in 
part  be  explained.  There  have  been  periods  when  these 
lands  of  the  Porte  included  not  far  from  a  hundred 
millions  of  people.  But  to-day  with  a  territory  of 
nearly  800,000  square  miles,  almost  four  times  the  size 
of  France,  there  are  not  quite  25  millions  of  population, 
or  31  inhabitants  to  the  square  mile.  Of  the  8,314, 
990  left  under  the  Ottoman  rule  in  Europe,  since  Rou- 
mania  with  her  5,073,000,  Servia  with  her  1,377,068, 
and  Montenegro  Avith  her  190,000  were  set  off,  but 
3,600,000  are  Mahometans.  The  Armenian  Bishop 
at  Orfah  assured  me  that  his  people,  numbering  but 
2,000,000  now,  included  a  century  ago  fully  5,000,000  ; 
and  that  the  loss  through  our  Protestant  missions  was 
trifling  compared  with  the  results  of  Turkish  misrule 
and  social  influence.  Physicians  of  large  experience 
among  the  Osmanlis  have  told  me,  that  from  forty  to 
sixty  per  cent,  of  the  men  can  never  become  fathers. 
This  is  a  rate  of  impotency,  which  points,  at  no  very 
distant  period,  to  the  complete  extinction  of  the  race. 
The  morals  of  the  so-called  christian  populations  are  not 
much  better.  Among  the  Arabs  and  the  Bedouins,  how- 
ever, virtue  is  quite  generally  esteemed  and  practised,  yet 
evidently  it  is  virtue  without  self-restraint.  While  in 
Arabic  and  Bedouin  society,  being  often  entertained  in 
their  mud  hovels  and  black  tents,  I  have  never  noted  the 
lascivious  glances  and  wanton  gayeties,  met  among 
Turks,  and  Bulgarians,  and  Armenians,  and  Greeks  ;  and 
yet  it  was  a  continual  surprise  to  find  so  few  children. 
When  good  government  shall  come  to  these  lands,  and 
the  depressing  influences  of  the  centuries  have  been 
lifted  ofi',  undoubtedly  it  is  the  Arab  race  which  is  pre- 


396  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

pared  to  take  the  lead  in  repopulating  these  waste 
resfions.  Their  men  and  women  have  impressed  me  as 
naturally  qualiiied  to  take  hold  vigorously  of  any  work 
that  is  noble  and  ennobling.  They  are  evidently  not  in 
their  element,  wallowing  in  the  dirt,  the  women  making 
drudires  of  themselves,  and  the  men  louno^ino:  around 
smoking.  I  have  sometimes  asked  them,  if  they  did 
not  know  that  they  were  capable  of  living  nobler  lives, 
and  of  taking  their  place  more  nearly  alongside  of 
Europeans?  ''Yes,"  they  have  generally  replied,  ''but 
not  under  the  present  o^overnment,  or  any  rule  of  the 
Turk." 

In  Arabia  itself,  especially,  I  have  been  very  much 
impressed  with  the  lingering  nobihty  and  capacity  of 
the  Arab  race.  The  farther  we  iind  them  away  from 
direct  Turkish  influence,  and  from  contact  with  the  de- 
cayed Oriental  churches,  and  the  blasted  political  and 
social  life  of  Egj'pt,  the  more  it  is  evident  that  their  man- 
hood and  womanhood  are  deserving  of  another  great 
and  responsible  lease  of  life  in  the  history  of  our  world. 
Arabia  has  many  surprises  for  mankind  within  the  not 
distant  future,  quite  as  great  as  those  lately  of  China 
and  Japan.  That  vast  territory  is  by  no  means  alto- 
gether a  desert,  and  there  are  populous  nations  there  of 
advanced  civilization,  maintaining  their  isolation  from 
the  outside  world  more  completely  than  for  so  many 
centuries  did  those  other  nations  of  eastern  Asia. 
Among  some  of  the  interior  populations  of  Arabia  con- 
siderable advance  has  been  made  in  the  fine  arts,  particu- 
larly in  sculpture.  I  have  seen  native  work  in  wood  and 
iron,  and  brass,  that  would  not  do  discredit  to  Belgium. 
The  crown  prince  of  one  of  the  little  Arabian  kingdoms 
on  the  coast,  which  rejects  with  disdain  all  Turkish 
authority,  escorted  me  through  the  streets  of  his  capital, 
and  along  the  shore.  I  never  saw  throughout  the  Otto- 
man empire,  except  within  the  immediate  circle  of 
influence  of  the  Christian  Missions,  so  many  signs  of 
good  breeding.  Again  and  again  I  stopped  before  the 
ornamented  gateway  entrance  to  a  dwelling,  exclaiming 
— "  Is  it  possible  that  this  is  Arabia?  "    The  market  was 


FUTURE  OF  THE  ARABS.  397 

very  orderly.  Though  the  people  are  extremely  poor, 
there  appeared  to  be  no  beggars.  A  like  occasion  in  a 
Turkish  city  would  be  sure  to  be  improved  by  a  whole 
pack  of  wretched  paupers.  There  were  no  dogs, 
another  favoral)le  contrast.  And  the  docks  and  break- 
water to  the  harbor  would  help  materially  many  a  city 
upon  the  eastern  shore  of  the  ^Mediterranean.  The 
information  I  could  gather  from  the  interior,  off  the 
ordinary  caravan  routes,  was  very  meagre.  But  I  learned 
enouo^h  to  convince  me  that  Arabia  has  some  startlino^ 
surprises  for  the  world,  and  to  confirm  me  in  the 
impressions  formed  elsewhere,  that  the  Arabs  are  the 
comino:  leadino:  race  in  Bible  lands. 

Nevertheless,  as  long  as  the  natural  tribal  instincts 
of  the  Arab  race  are  so  strong,  they  will  need  in  their 
collective  capacity  and  foreign  relations  the  guiding 
hand  of  other  power  than  they  are  themselves  capa- 
ble of  furnishing.  That  not  much  longer  the  Turk 
will  be  alloAved  to  lay  claim  to  such  sovereignty,  became 
more  r.nd  more  evident  to  me,  as  upon  my  journeyings 
I  drew  ou«t  the  people  of  the  various  nationalities  and 
classes  upon  the  question  of  the  government.  It  was  a 
surprise  to  find  such  universal  freedom  in  conversation 
upon  this  subject.  There  seemed  noAvhere  any  hesi- 
tancy to  express  sentiments  of  such  thorough  disloyalty, 
as  under  any  strong  government,  at  least  of  monarchical 
form,  would  insure  conviction  and  punishment  for  trea- 
son. Indeed  I  never  heard  any  other  expressions  than 
those  of  disloyalty.  The  wretched  government  of 
Turkey  seems  to  have  lost  all  its  friends,  even  among 
its  own  highest  officials  throughout  the  provinces.  The 
introduction  from  the  India  foreign  secretary,  and  the 
temporary  strain  of  the  diplomatic  situation  regarding 
the  promised  reforms,  to  which  reference  has  been 
made,  secured  us  the  most  un])ounded  hospitality  from 
all  the  officials  throughout  the  country.  Wherever 
there  was  a  kamerkam,  pasha,  or  waly,  the  best  rooms, 
table,  attendance,  and  stables  were  at  our  disposal. 
INIany  a  time  have  I  eaten  Avith  my  Turkish  host  out  of 
the    same  dish,  in  token  of  the  utmost  cordiality,  and 


398  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

pulled  with  him  the  roasted  fowl  or  lamb  to  pieces  with 
bare  hands  and  simultaneous  movements,  in  evidence 
of  the  same  disposition  to  be  entertaining  and  appre- 
ciative. Surely  under  such  circumstances  it  seems  very 
ungracious  to  question  the  motives  of  hospitality,  and 
to  report  treasonable  sentiments  uttered  in  such  confi- 
dential interviews.  But  it  was  too  evident  all  along 
that  there  were  axes  to  grind  ;  and  as  to  telling  what 
they  said,  that  was  exactly  what  they  wanted  to  have 
done.  At  least  in  those  far-otf  provinces  the  officials 
have  lost  all  fear  of  Constantinople,  and,  as  they  are 
expecting  the  English  to  come  in  soon  and  take  posses- 
sion of  the  country,  they  are  anxious  for  reappointment 
under  the  new  government.  They  think  that  any  atten- 
tion they  can  draw  to  themselves,  as  persons  fully 
anticipating  the  crisis,  and  profoundly  indignant  at  the 
stupidity  and  wickedness  of  the  Sultan  and  all  his  court, 
will  increase  their  chances  in  the  British  civil  and  mili- 
tary service  of  Turkey. 

A  part  of  my  experience  at  Bijirek,  a  city  of  12,000 
population  upon  the  Euphrates,  will  illustrate  the  politi- 
cal and  still  prevailing  religious  situation.  Never  upon 
the  Babylon  and  Nineveh  portion  of  my  touring  of 
Bible  lands,  except  w^hen  in  the  close  companionship  of 
a  missionary,  would  the  natives  believe  me  when  I  said 
I  was  a  christian  clergyman  from  America.  They  knew 
better.  I  was  a  British  official  personally  inspecting 
the  country  as  preliminary  to  its  annexation  to  the 
English  Crown.  The  large  body-guard  of  native  soldiers, 
and  the  constant  official  telegraphing  back  and  forth  re- 
garding our  movements,  allowed  them,  they  affirmed, 
no  other  explanation.  After  a  while  I  gave  up  what 
they  were  evidently  bound  to  consider  as  lying.  A 
mile  outside  of  Bijirek  six  venerable  Arab  sheiks  met 
me  and  presented  an  opening  rosebud,  as  token  of  the 
beautiful  hospitality  opening  to  welcome  me.  All  the 
city  was  out  in  its  gala  dress.  It  had  been  preparing 
for  two  days  to  extend  cordiality  to  the  outrider  of  the 
British  delivering  power.  I  was  paraded  through  each 
of  the  principal  streets,  and  required  to  review  a  regi- 


DISTINGUISHED    AND    EXTINGUISHED.  399 

ment  of  soldiers.  Everywhere  e}  es  were  full  of  glad- 
ness and  gratitude.  Here  was  a  ray  of  English  hope 
through  the  long  oppressing  darkness  of  Turkish  night. 
The  best  house  of  the  city  was  placed  at  my  disposal. 
Crowds  of  dignitaries  flocked  to  my  reception.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  end  to  the  coflee  drinking  and  smoking. 
Just  then  my  servant  overheard  that  there  was  another 
foreigner  in  the  city,  and  that  he  was  a  missionary.  I 
hastened  to  send  my  card,  begging  that  he  would  come 
immediately  and  save  me  from  my  ^Moslem  friends. 
Soon  entered  the  Rev.  O.  P.  Allen,  for  twenty-five 
years  the  American  Board  Congregationalist  missionary 
to  Harpoot.  Our  mutual  cordiality  of  the  real  christian 
sort,  my  breaking  away  quickly  to  go  over  and  call 
upon  his  excellent  wife,  and  a  few  words  of  explanation 
from  him  completely  dissipated  the  charm.  I  was  im- 
mediately dropped  by  the  whole  city  full  of  Turks 
and  sheiks  and  grandees  and  Moslem  common  people. 
They  would  hardly  look  at  me  the  next  day  upon  my 
departure.  Indeed  I  had  to  threaten  complaint  to  the 
head  pasha  of  the  district  before  I  could  get  my  needed 
guard.  But  oh  !  what  a  good  prayer  and  conference 
meeting  this  missionary  family  and  I  had  that  night 
with  a  dozen  native  christians  ! 

Very  evident  is  it  that  the  population  of  Turkey  is 
ripe  for  a  change  of  rulers,  while  the  Moslems  at  least 
are  far  from  ready  to  give  up  their  religion.  The 
political  agent  of  a  foreign '  power,  English  especially, 
though  French  or  even  Austrian  they  think  would 
answer  if  they  could  not  have  their  choice,  would  be 
welcomed  everywhere  ;  but  the  missionary,  and  those 
of  his  kind  are  yet  only  to  be  barely  tolerated  in  defer- 
ence to  treaty  requirements  of  the  great  powers.  This 
utterly  hopeless  condition  of  political  affairs  throughout 
the  Ottoman  empire  was  unwittingly  precipitated  by  the 
Crimean  war  twenty-five  years  ago.  The  supposed  exi- 
gencies of  Europe  brought  to  the  side  of  Turkey  as  her  al- 
lies against  Russia  two  of  the  richest  nations  of  the  world, 
England  and  France.  They  taught  Turkey  the  fatal 
lesson  of  running  up  immense  war  debts,  and  then  of 


400  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

paying  by  borrowing.  Previously  the  Ottoman  gov- 
ernment had  kept  out  of  all  such  entanglement  with 
foreign  power,  as  the  ol)ligation  to  meet  interest  and 
finally  principal  of  enormous  paper  issues.  Its  wars 
and  home  extravagances  were  guaged  by  the  amount 
which  could  be  forced  immediately  from  the  people  by 
a  great  variety  of  cruel  expedients.  Centuries  had 
accustomed  the  populations  to  such  tyranny,  and  the 
government  knew  just  about  how  much  blood  money 
the  body  politic  could  lose  at  once  without  collapse. 
But  this  new  policy  of  unlimited  borrowing  in  the  money 
markets  of  Europe  put  everything  at  sea.  After  a  few 
years  of  enormous  outlays  upon  army,  navy  and  palaces, 
and  the  squandering  of  numerous  fortunes  upon  favorite 
officials,  credit  began  to  tighten.  Banking  institutions 
and  the  investing  public  became  reluctant  to  lend  money 
annually  to  pay  their  own  interest.  This  burden  of 
interest  and  of  the  maturing  principal  was  too  heavy 
for  the  empire.  The  people  did  not  have  the  money, 
and  so  it  could  not  be  wrung  from  them.  Confiscate 
everything,  and  still  the  national  promises  to  pay 
Europe  could  not  be  met.  Thus,  between  the  millstone 
of  foreign  indebtedness  and  the  nether  stone  of  a  vastly 
overtaxed  and  cruelly  outraged  population,  the  Osmanli 
dynasty  and  the  entire  sovereignty  of  the  Porte  are  being 
ground  to  powder. 

What  government  will  succeed  the  Ottoman  over 
these  rich  but  wasted  lands,  is  the  other  half  of  this 
great  and  complicated  Eastern  Question.  It  appears  to 
me  that  the  inevitable  tendency,  beginning  to  move 
with  irresistible  force,  is  for  Great  Britain  to  acquire 
Constantinople  and  the  regions  adjacent  to  the  Bosporus 
and  the  Dardanelles,  for  the  remaining  portions  of 
European  Turkey  to  be  divided  up  between  Austria, 
Italy  and  Greece,  for  the  suzerainty  of  all  the  region 
from  the  Black  Sea  to  the  Nile  to  be  divided  between 
England  and  France,  for  Germany  to  receive  her  com- 
pensation with  cessions  from  Austria  to  the  fatherland, 
and  for  Russia  to  be  permitted  in  view  of  the  increased 
guarantees  to  Great  Britain  and  Europe  to  advance  to 


PRESENT    AND   FUTURE    "EASTERN    QUESTIONS."    401 

the  borders  of  India.  Then  will  loom  up  the  Persian 
question  as  the  second  great  Eastern  Question.  To  the 
present  difficulty  the  key  is  the  possession  of  Constan- 
tinople. The  Turks  must  give  it  up.  Europe  will  not 
allow  Russia  to  possess  it.  Austria  does  not  want  it  as 
much  as  she  wants  Salonica  and  intervening  territory. 
And  compensations  are  possible  all  around,  if  Great 
Britain  takes  it.  And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  her 
fleet  is  able  to  take  and  hold  it,  despite  any  opposition 
which  Turkey  and  Russia  might  offer.  This  arrange- 
ment would  preserve  the  balance  of  power,  and  secure 
the  payment  of  the  Ottoman  debt.  To  such  a  solution 
the  mind  of  England  and  Europe  are  rapidly  drifting. 
Since  Beaconstield's  aggressive  policy,  British  states- 
manship has  swung  to  the  other  extreme,  from  which 
such  a  reaction  is  sure,  as  will  warrant  the  fleet  again  to 
the  Bosporus,  and,  probably  before  the  close  of  the 
present  century,  the  complete  re-arrangement  upon  the 
map  of  the  eastern  ^Mediterranean. 

This  solution  of  the  Eastern  Question  is  quite  as  im- 
portant for  Christian  Missions  as  for  European  political 
interests.  In  many  respects  the  situation  for  the  cause 
of  evangelization  would  be  improved.  Thus,  in  the 
first  place,  the  needed  greater  religious  freedom  would 
be  secured.  The  worship  of  God,  according  to  the 
religion  in  which  one  is  born,  is  guaranteed  to  every 
Ottoman  citizen.  This  is  what  the  christian  world 
thought  was  gained  by  the  alliances  furnished  Turkey 
in  the  Crimean  war.  But  it  was  not  full  religious 
liberty  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  understood  by  the 
most  advanced  christian  nations  ;  and  as  designed  by  the 
commissioners  of  the  Porte  it  was  scarcely  more  than 
the  freedom  allowed  from  the  legislation  of  the  prophet 
himself,  and  which  had  been  formally  declared  in  the 
Hatti  Sherifl*  of  Gulhane,  issued  in  1839  by  Sultan 
Abdul  ]Medjid.  Three  alternatives  have  always  been 
ofiered  a  conquered  population,  the  adoption  of  Islam, 
the  payment  of  the  heavy  Jiziyah  or  poll-tax,  or  death 
by  the  sword.  All  but  idolaters  could  continue  to  wor- 
ship God  according  to  their  own  custom.     Some  of  the 


402  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

invariably  accompanying  disabilities  were  sought  by  the 
christian  powers  to  be  removed  by  the  Hatti  Humayun 
of  1856,  which  was  also  generally  supposed  to  grant 
full  religious  liberty.  A  few  of  the  stipulations  of  that 
firman  have  been  carried  out,  but  others  have  been  com- 
pletely evaded.  The  fact  is,  the  Koran  does  not  allow 
the  Sultan  to  grant  that  full  toleration,  which  it  was 
hoped  he  had  done.  The  law  of  Islam  requires  that  an 
apostate  shall  be  killed  within  three  days  unless  he  re- 
pents, his  property  going  to  those  of  his  heirs  who 
remain  Moslems.  Of  the  subsequent  diplomatic  con- 
troversy. Sir  Henry  Elliot  wrote:  '^It  must,  however, 
be  admitted  that  the  arguments  on  the  side  of  the  Turks 
were  not  without  weight.  They  said  that  Avhile  the  free 
exercise  of  his  relisfion  was  o'uaranteed  to  each  of  the 
Sultan's  subjects,  the  right  of  making  proselytes  from 
the  reliofion  of  the  State  neither  had  been  nor  was  in- 
tended  to  be  given."  In  the  late  treaty  of  Berlin  it  was 
sought  as  far  as  possible  to  secure  civil  and  religious 
liberty  throughout  the  Ottoman  dominions,  but  the  es- 
sential difficulty  remains,  and  the  way  the  Porte  has 
evaded  the  stipulations  regarding  the  Greek  boundary, 
and  the  special  reforms  in  Asia  Minor,  indicates  how 
easily  these  new  treaty  requirements  will  be  rendered  a 
dead  letter  in  as  far  as  they  essentially  conflict  with 
Islam.  Not  yet  is  it  practicable  to  hold  open  religious 
services  for  Moslem  congregations,  though  they  also  are 
invited  to  the  public  worship  attended  chiefly  by  ad- 
herents from  the  christian  populations.  A  few  accept 
such  invitations ;  and,  to  especially  encourage  their 
coming,  it  is  the  policy  of  the  missions  to  sustain 
wherever  practicable  one  service  every  Sunday  in  the 
Turkish  lano^uao:e.  Restrictions  linsrer  also  around  the 
mission  press  on  all  publications,  except  the  Bible. 
Thanks  to  God's  blessing  upon  British  influence,  the 
hostile  efibrts  of  the  Porte  against  the  Holy  Scriptures 
have  all  been  thwarted,  and  to-day  the  Word  of  God  is 
not  bound  throughout  the  Ottoman  empire.  Yet  aU 
other  books  and  tracts  must  receive  the  signature  of  the 
Censor.     This  is  now  very  seldom  withheld,  yet  practi- 


PKOSPECT    OF   FAIR    CONFLICT    WITH    ISLAM.         403 

cally  it  is  a  constant  prohibition  against  the  most  direct 
and  perhaps  telling  assaults  upon  the  doctrines  of  the 
false  prophet.  Not  until  the  Sultan  is  deposed,  and  the 
legislation  of  Mahomet,  as  interpreted  in  Mecca  and  ad- 
ministered in  Constantinople,  is  entirely  supplanted,  can 
true  civil  and  religious  li])erty  be  secured  to  these  fair 
lands.  The  Eastern  Question  must  first  be  settled,  and 
then  the  freedom  will  come,  for  which  there  have  been 
such  long  waiting  and  such  vain  diplomatic  endeavor. 

The  reflex  influence  of  this  benediction  upon  Turkey 
will  be  felt  throughout  Austria  and  Greece,  and  per- 
haps also  in  Russia.  The  civil  and  religious  liberty 
guaranteed  to  all  Ottoman  lands  must  not  be  withheld 
from  the  districts  ceded  to  the  European  christian 
powers.  It  will  not  then  answer  either  for  Austria  or 
Greece  to  deny  to  their  present  populations  rights  and 
privileges  accorded  to  the  annexed  provinces.  The  law 
of  consistency,  will  work  with  resistless  force,  com- 
pelling the  abrogation  of  repressive  laws,  which  have 
long:  hindered  the  evanoelizino-  labors  of  our  mission- 
aries  in  those  countries. 

With  the  rapidly  approaching  settlement  suggested 
of  the  Eastern  Question,  Christianity  for  the  first  time 
will  come  into  fair  conflict  with  Islamism.  The  doc- 
trines and  principles  of  l^oth  will  be  brought  face  to 
face.  The  ^loslem  will  have  to  descend  from  his  self- 
conscious  superiority  and  arrogant  conduct,  and  deal 
with  the  Christian  as  other  than  an  object  for  mere  pity 
or  contempt.  He  will  be  compelled  to  open  the  ques- 
tion of  the  divine  mission  of  Mahomet,  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  Koran,  doctrines  which  are,  and 
always  have  been  merely  assumed,  never  discussed, 
never  investigated.  Rev.  Mr.  Hughes,  of  Peshawur, 
who  is  familiar  Avith  the  literature  of  Islam,  testifies 
that  "in  the  whole  range  of  Moslem  divinity  (which 
consists  of  many  thousands  of  theological  treatises)  you 
will  not  find  one  work  or  treatise  bearing  upon  either 
of  those  important  questions  ! "  On  the  other  hand 
more  generally,  when  the  political  pressure  of  Moslem- 
ism  has  been  removed,  the  christian  will  have  a  more 


404  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

intelligent,  and  in  some  respects  a  higher  appreciation 
of  the  religious  system  with  which  he  is  in  conflict.  He 
will  see  that,  in  the  providence  of  God,  the  movement, 
which  came  to  the  surface  under  Mahomet,  has  been 
assigned  a  very  important  part  in  the  regeneration  of 
Asia  and  Africa.  It  Avill  be  recognized  as  a  great 
iconoclastic  power,  raised  up,  as  Dr.  SchaiF  declares, 
"to  destroy  the  gross  idolatries  of  heathen  nations,  and 
to  punish  the  refined  idolatry  of  christian  churches, 
Avhich  had  practically  forgotten  the  first  and  second 
commandments . " 

Moreover,  when  Europe  has  thus  administered  upon 
the  estate  of  Turkey,  the  native  christian  churches  will 
become  more  independent,  healthy  and  aggressive.  A 
leading  difficulty  Avith  them  has  been  that  they  have 
been  so  poor  and  dependent.  Gathered  almost  entirely 
from  the  decayed  christian  populations,  their  members 
have  been  those  generally  the  most  crushed  to  the 
ground  by  the  bigotry  and  tyranny  of  the  Moslem 
power.  They  had  nothing  left  after  the  cruel  exactions 
of  government  and  their  furnishing  themselves  and 
their  families  with  the  bare  necessaries  of  life,  absolutely 
nothing  for  the  sustaining  of  divine  worship  and 
christian  schools.  Nevertheless,  so  vital  is  the  principle 
of  self-support  to  the  individual  character  and  to  the 
vigorous  fruitful  growth  of  the  church,  that  during  the 
last  few  years  commenda})le  progress  has  been  made  by 
the  missionaries  at  several  of  the  stations,  notably  at 
Harpoot,  Aintab  and  Marash,  in  teaching  the  natives  to 
support,  in  part  at  least,  their  own  christian  institu- 
tions. This  has  required  personal  sacrifices  on  the  part 
of  the  native  members,  that  would  put  to  shame  the 
large  proportion  of  the  benevolences  in  christian  lands. 
It  has  often  meant  fasting  and  suffering,  l)ut  the  gains  in 
vigor  of  life  and  in  the  moral  influence  over  the  sur- 
rounding communities  have  been  worth  the  pains. 
Nevertheless,  it  will  be  vastly  better  when  the  load  of 
excessive  poverty  shall  be  lifted,  and  the  same  spirit 
enable  the  native  churches  generally  to  be  entirely  self- 
supporting. 


PROPHECY    OF   EDUCATIONAL    INSTITUTIONS.         405 

It  is  very  important  also  to  observe  that  the  educa- 
tional and  translation  work  of  Christian  ^Missions  in 
Turkey  has  reached  the  point  of  very  complete  readi- 
ness for  enlarged  opportunity.  When  I  have  looked 
at  the  Robert  College  at  Constantinople,  and  the  Syrian 
Protestant  College  at  Beirut ;  when  also  I  have  visited 
the  mission  publication  houses  in  each  of  those  cities, 
and  met  representatives  of  the  Turkish  College  at 
Aintab  and  the  Armenian  College  at  Harpoot,  I  have 
felt  deeply  impressed  that  consecrated  intellectual  forces 
and  facilities  have  been  gathered  in  the  providence  of 
God  for  a  speedy  and  glorious  advance  of  evangelizing 
activity.  Unless  we  are  on  the  eve  of  great  political 
changes  in  Turkey,  changes  that  will  vastly  enlarge  the 
opportunity  for  Christian  Missions,  it  appears  to  me  that 
the  educational  and  literary  preparations  in  that  country 
are  in  advance  of  the  time,  and  disproportionate  to 
those  of  many  other  hmds  of  the  missionar}^  Avorld. 
But  undoubtedly  God  has  not  allowed  any  such  mistake  ; 
and,  in  answer  to  so  many  prayers,  his  providence  has 
wisely  anticipated  the  demands  of  the  closing  years  of 
this  century.  And,  as  the  purposes  of  the  God  of 
nations  ripen,  and  the  coming  necessities  for  native 
sacred  learning  and  christian  literature  appear  through- 
out these  lands  of  intellectual  and  moral  darkness,  even 
largely  increased  resources  Avill  doubtless  be  strained 
to  their  utmost. 

Probably,  also,  the  appropriation  of  Turkish  terri- 
tory by  Europe  will  allay  an  immense  amount  of  that 
animosity  and  intrigue,  which,  however  occasioned, 
monopolize  a  large  proportion  of  the  thoughts  of  the 
people  of  these  del)ata1:>le  lands,  increasing  vastly  the 
difficulty  of  engaging  their  attention  with  religious  sub- 
jects. The  situation  is  somewhat  like  the  evangelistic 
efforts  in  the  border  states  during  the  height  of  the  late 
American  war.  The  minds  and  hearts  of  the  popula- 
tions are  preoccupied  with  present  interests  of  the  most 
exciting  character.  And  how  exacting  upon  the  time 
and  attention  political  affiiirs  have  been  throughout 
Turkey,  it  is  very  difficult  for  those  to  appreciate,  who 


406  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

live  among  daily  newspaper  facilities,  and  in  a  half 
hour  every  day  can  ])ecoine  reasonably  posted  upon  all 
important  news.  But  where  inlormation  has  to  he 
gathered  by  hearsay, — a  little  from  this  traveller  and 
a  little  from  that ;  and  then  to  be  reported  from  neigh- 
bor to  neighbor  throughout  the  city  or  village  (sure  to 
l)e  exaggerated,  and  then  the  more  frequently  needing 
correction),  —  the  consumi)tion  of  the  time  and  atten- 
tion of  the  peoi)le  is  enormous.  I  usually  spent  two 
hours  a  day  answering  questions  about  the  news  from 
Constantinople,  and  Europe,  and  Eussia,  and  the  famine 
districts,  and  India.  And  largely  it  was  not  mere  de- 
sire for  gossip,  but  a  deep  l)urning  interest  in  i)olitical 
affairs,  a  consuming  anxiety  for  relief  from  the  crushing 
burdens  of  a  wretched  tyranny.  AVhen  such  anxiety  is 
removed,  the  missionary  will  have  much  better  oppor- 
tunity ;  the  peo})le  will  have  more  lime  to  listen,  talk, 
and  read  of  the  kiniidom  of  redeeming  love  and  eternal 
Hfe. 

The  anticipated  i)olitical  changes  will  quickly  develop 
many  of  the  natural  facilities  for  intercommunication 
throughout  the  lands  now  under  the  tyranny  of  the 
Sultan.  For  years  a  responsible  British  steamship  line 
has  been  ready  to  occupy  the  route  between  Baghdad 
and  Mosul  uj^on  the  Tigris.  Even  noAv  a  regular  line 
upon  the  Euphrates  would  pay.  The  coasting  facilities 
are  immense,  and,  Avith  the  return  of  agricultural  and 
conmiercial  prosperity,  travelling  opportunities  would 
soon  be  ccpial  to  those  along  our  American  sea-board. 
There  are  many  routes  of  traffic,  Avhich  Avould  Avarrant 
the  construction  of  raihvays  under  a  just,  strong,  and 
stable  government.  Canals  Avould  be  required,  some  of 
Avhich  would  only  have  to  be  reconstructed  from  old 
B:il)yl()nian,  and  Assyrian,  and  Roman,  Greek,  and 
Egyi)tian  remains.  This  coming  increase  of  travelling 
facility  Avill  largely  add  to  the  efficiency  of  the  mission- 
ary force.  It  is  really  distressing  to  see  hoAv  much 
valuable  time  has  now  to  be  consumed  in  getting  from 
place  to  place.  A  Mardin  missionary  had  just  preceded 
me  on  his  annual  visit  to  Bnglidtul  nnd  Mosul,  and  it 


FRAGMENTS    OF   THE    EASTERN    CHURCH.  407 

took  me  three  weeks  of  hard  horseback  riding,  not  in- 
cluding the  delay  at  Nineveh,  to  cover  his  return  route. 
The  Tigris  line  of  steamers  would  have  saved  more 
than  a  fortnight.  Then,  too,  Bible  lands  will  be  much 
more  accessible  to  the  travelling  pul)lic  generally.  At 
a  very  much  moderated  expense,  they  will  be  brought 
within  the  limits  of  a  spring  excursion :  we  could  not 
advise  a  summer  one  even  in  a  Pullman  drawing-room 
car.  Moreover,  the  political  change  will  secure  the  long- 
delayed  freedom  for  thorough  Biblical  researches  by  the 
archaeologists  of  Christendom.  Alas,  what  treasures  of 
Scripture  antiquities  remain  undiscovered,  because  of 
the  ignorance  and  jealousies  of  Turkish  officials  ! 

We  may  add,  that  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  additional 
political  responsibilities,  which  Great  Britain  must  as- 
sume, as  the  outcome  of  this  Eastern  Question,  will 
excite  English  christian  churches  to  take  hold  vigorously 
of  evangelizing  labor  in  these  lands,  and  not  leave  them 
as  hitherto  almost  entirely  to  the  mission  interest  of 
America. 

The  various  fragments  of  the  Eastern  Christian 
Church  are  an  exceedingly  interesting  study.  It  has 
been  a  great  privilege  to  form  the  acquaintance  of  many 
of  their  clergy  and  laity,  to  inquire  directly  into  their 
richly  laden  history,  and  to  reach  some  face  to  face 
impressions  as  to  a  variety  of  important  missionary 
questions  with  which  they  are  involved.  The  Greek 
Church,  — to  which  the  great  mass  of  the  populations  of 
Russia,  as  also  of  the  2,800,000  Greek  Christians  of 
Austria  belong,  and  which  claims  the  title  of  "The 
Catholic  and  Apostolic  Oriental  Church,"  —  has  four 
patriarchs  in  the  Ottoman  empire  ;  —  at  Constantinople, 
Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Jerusalem.  Among  them 
Roman  Catholic  missions  have  been  successful  in  de- 
taching a  considerable  body  of  adherents,  designating 
themselves  as  the  Greek  Catholic  Church.  Their 
patriarch  resides  at  Damascus,  and  their  clergy  are 
mostly  Arabs  who  have  been  educated  at  Rome. 
Similar  secessions  have  also  taken  place  from  the  Syrian 
and  Armenian  Churches  in  the  direction  of  papal  author- 


408  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ity,  and  the  sects  are  called  Syrian  Catholics  and 
Armenian  Catholics.  Among  the  Orthodox  Greek 
populations  Protestant  Missions  have  not  yet  met  with 
the  same  measure  of  success  as  among  the  adherents  of 
some  of  the  other  Eastern  Churches,  and  yet  gradually 
even  these  proud  and  bigoted  religionists,  numbering  in 
Turkey  2,000,000,  are  proving  accessible  to  a  scriptural 
and  spiritual  Christianity^  A  larger  body  are  the 
Bulgarians,  including  2,800,000  adherents,  who  are 
members  of  the  Greek  Church,  but  independent  now  of 
the  great  hierarchy.  For  a  long  time  they  were  com- 
pelled by  the  government  to  recognize  the  authority  of 
the  Greek  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  but  recently 
they  secured  their  own  Exarch,  and  now,  while  Greek 
in  opposition  to  Rome,  they  form  a  quite  independent  sect. 
On  account  of  their  late  advances  in  civil  and  religious 
liberty,  their  population  forms  an  exceedingly  interest- 
ing field  for  mission  work,  Avhich  since  the  late  war 
especially  has  been  cultivated  by  the  American  Board 
with  great  encouragement.  The  Armenians  number  the 
same  as  the  Orthodox  Greeks  in  Turkey,  2,000,000. 
They  are  governed  by  four  patriarchs,  whose  chief  re- 
sides at  the  monastery  of  Echmiazin,  near  the  Mount 
Ararat  of  Armenia.  This  community  has  more  intelli- 
gence, wealth  and  social  influence  than  any  of  the  other 
Oriental  Churches  of  the  Ottoman  empire.  On  account 
of  their  quiet,  steady  methods  of  life,  the}^  have  been 
called  ''the  Quakers  of  the  East."  Protestant  Missions 
among  them  have  met  with  considerable  success,  and 
their  ecclesiastical  leaders  are  beginning  to  treat  our 
missionaries  w^ith  marked  respect.  The  Maronites 
(250,000)  are  so  named  from  their  first  bishop  in  the 
seventh  century,  are  strongly  Roman  Catholic,  though 
rejecting  celibacy  for  their  priesthood,  and  holding  some 
other  independent  views,  and  use  the  almost  dead 
Syriac  as  their  ecclesiastical  language.  The  residence 
of  their  patriarch  is  upon  Mount  Le1)anon.  A  ]Maronite, 
with  whom  I  became  acquainted  at  Bushra,  500  miles 
below  Baghdad,  is  one  of  the  most  refined  and 
thoroughly  educated  gentlemen  I  have  ever  met.     His 


THE   NESTORIANS    AND   NESIBIS.  409 

cousin,  Mr.  Bistany,  of  Baghdad,  a  Protestant  chris- 
tian, furnished  me  with  drafts  upon  jMosuI  and  Aleppo, 
which  were  readily  cashed,  notwithstanding  it  is  gene- 
rally reported  that  such  arrangements  are  impossible  upon 
the  Babylon  and  Xineveh  route.  The  last  words  of  this 
enterprising  merchant,  to  whom  I  had  been  introduced 
by  Dr.  Jessup,  of  Beirut,  were,  "If  3^ou  should  be 
robbed  and  need  funds,  draw  on  me  to  any  amount,  for 
I  shall  telegraph  you  credit  all  the  way  along."  Very 
good  treatment  that  for  the  latitude  and  longitude  of 
Baghdad.  Moreover,  on  account  of  the  different  rates 
of  exchange,  I  found  that  half  his  paper  was  worth 
more  when  presented  than  I  had  paid  for  it ;  certainly  a 
very  agreeable  way  for  a  traveller  to  do  his  banking. 

Another  sect  of  Roman  Catholic  christians  are  the 
Latins  (100,000),  called  also  Chaldean  Catholics,  who 
have  well  endowed  their  convents  and  educational 
establishments  with  money  mostly  contributed  by 
Catholic  Europe.  Their  head,  whom  I  met  at  Mosul,' 
his  ecclesiastical  seat,  claims  the  title  of  Patriarch  of 
Babylon.  Then  there  are  the  Syrians  or  Jacobites 
(70,000),  who  derive  their  latter  name  from  Jacobus 
Baradaeus,  a  noted  ecclesiastic  of  the  6th  century. 
Their  chief,  called  the  Patriarch  of  Antioch,  resides  in  a 
monastery  most  picturesquely  situated  in  the  north  of 
Mesopotamia  near  Mardin.  He  claims  to  be  the  head 
also  of  the  Syrian  christians  of  Travancore,  India. 
The  Jacobites  are  monophy sites,  blending  the  two 
natures  of  Christ  into  one  —  the  divine.  They  are 
opposed  by  the  Chaldean  Xestorians,  of  Kurdistan  and 
the  Tigro-Euphrates  valley,  who  so  emphasize  the  two 
natures  of  our  Lord  as  to  speak  of  him  as  two  persons. 
It  is  the  lingering  result  of  the  old  controversy  between 
Cyril  and  Nestorius.  These  Chaldean  christians,  who 
are  called  Xestorians  by  their  opponents  and  have  come 
thus  to  be  designated  generally,  are  the  remains  of  one 
of  the  most  celebrated  Churches  of  history.  They  claim 
the  Apostle  Thomas  as  their  founder,  and  in  the  sixth 
century  were  leaders  in  religious  learning  and  missionary 
enterprise,     I  visited  with  intense  interest  Xesibis  and 


410  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Edessa,  from  whence  as  centres  of  christian  intelligence 
and  consecration  evangelizing  influence  spread  forth 
over  two  thirds  of  Asia.  During  the  reign  of  the 
Caliphs  "  The  World  for  Christ "  seems  to  have  been  the 
rallying  cry  of  the  Nestorian  Church,  until  their  mis- 
sions were  scattered  all  over  the  vast  region  between 
Jerusalem  and  China.  Their  records  are  still  found 
within  but  a  few  hundred  miles  of  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
Their  hierarchy  at  one  time  included  25  archbishops, 
and  their  numl)er  of  communicants,  according  to  Gib]:)on 
and  Layard,  exceeded  those  of  the  Greek  and  Latin 
Churches.  The}^  have  deservedly  been  called  "  the 
Protestants  of  the  East."  They  did  a  glorious  work, 
and  the  history  of  their  rise  forms  part  of  the  most 
valuable  records  of  the  Christian  Church.  But  their  fall 
came.  The  world  rushed  in  upon  them  like  a  flood. 
Intelligence,  refinement,  learning  and  missionary  enter- 
prise are  not  in  themselves  guarantees  of  permanency 
and  continued  prosperities.  If  the  Holy  Spirit  be 
grieved  away ;  if  religious  power  is  tempted  aside  by 
worldly  ambitions  ;  if  formalism  is  permitted  to  take  the 
place  of  vital  piety,  the  religious  body  is  sure  to  go  into 
decline.  Nestorian  history  is  full  of  lessons  for  the 
churches  of  to-day.  There  are  christian  communions, 
which  God  has  greatly  prospered,  and  whose  influence 
at  present  for  good  is  world-wide,  yet  Avhich  are  running 
upon  the  rocks  which  wrecked  Nestorianism,  and  in 
centuries  to  come  may  be  found  in  as  sad  a  plight  as  the 
Nestorians  to-day,  surrounded  and  crushed  to  the  ground 
by  Turks,  Persians  and  Kurds.  We  have  seen  that  the 
efforts  to  reform  those  of  northwestern  Persia  proved  a 
failure,  and  so  likewise  has  it  been  with  similar  endeavors 
in  Turkey ;  and  it  is  a  solemn  thought  that  some  of  the 
churches,  which  are  now  leaders  in  Christendom,  may 
lapse  into  such  a  wretched  condition,  as  to  render  it 
impossible  to  reinspire  them  with  the  divine  truth  and 
the  divine  life. 

Three  additional  glances  of  thought.  The  common 
people  of  Turkey,  of  almost  all  nationalities,  are  much 
superior   to   their  rulers.     In   Smyrna   I  witnessed   a 


SMYRNA   AND   PLEVNA.  .  411 

review  of  troops.  The  rank  and  file  were  evidently  of 
better  material  than  their  officers.  Either  civil  or 
military  position  in  Turkey  means  dissipation,  the  loss 
of  character  and  manhood.  Plevna  will  not  be  forgotten 
in  estimating  the  courage  still  at  the  call  of  Islam. 
Eeligious  fanaticism  is  not  waning  as  rapidly  as  political 
power.  ^Mistake  should  not  be  made  here.  Damascus 
and  Bulo'aria  must  not  be  foro-otten.  Other  massacres 
and  atrocities  will  probably  stain  the  pages  of  history. 
But  Christian  Missions  are  at  the  root  of  the  difficulty. 
They  are  having  many  accessories,  but  are  themselves 
the  hope  of  Turkey.  One  of  those  accessories  is  the  late 
introduction  in  part  of  a  Customs'  service,  under  chiefly 
English  supervision,  similar  to  that  we  have  met  in  China. 
For  asking  a  bril)e  my  custom-house  inspector  at  Beirut 

—  being  under  the  reformed  department — was  dismissed 

—  surely  a  gleam  of  sunshine  for  this  wretchedly 
governed  country. 


412  CHEISTIAN   MISSIONS, 


CHAPTER  XXIY. 

CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS  IN  TURKEY. 

^1 


,  i  N  the  early  part  of  the  present  century  the 
m^  mission  interest  of  several  branches  of  the 
Christian  Church  was  strongly  attracted  in 
the  direction  of  the  Levant.  The  population 
of  the  Ottoman  empire  then  was  estimated  at 
35,000,000,  of  Avhom  12,000,000  belonged 
to  the  decayed  Oriental  Christian  Churches. 
The  prospect  of  this  tield  for  evangelistic  labor  was  in 
the  minds  of  many  leaders  most  encouraging.  Such 
judgment  was  not  a  mistaken  one,  and  yet  the  three 
most  prominent  grounds  for  their  encouragement  have 
proved  to  he  illusory.  The  fathers  of  both  the  Church 
Mission  Society  of  England  and  the  American  Board 
overestimated  the  religious  character  and  reform  capacity 
of  the  Greek,  Armenian,  Nestorian  and  Coptic  Churches. 
They  argued  too  hastily  that  the  late,  revolutions  in 
Europe  had  destroyed  the'  aggressive  power  of  the 
Roman  Catholic;  College  de  Propaganda  Fide.  And 
they  were  too  sanguine  in  their  expectation  that  the 
Greek  Catholic  Church,  the  Syrian  Catholics,  the  Ar- 
menian Catholics,  the  Maronites,  and  other  sects  of  the 
Ottoman  empire  in  allegiance  to  Rome  were  a  field  all 
ripe  for  the  harvest-gatherers  of  evangelical  Christen- 
dom. More  correctly  did  the  fothers  of  the  modern 
missionary  enterprise  measure  the  situation  regarding 
the  Mahometan  populations.  They  did  not  consider 
them  as  yet  directly  accessiljle  to  christian  truth.  But 
they  hoped  to  reach  them  through  evangelized  Jews  in 
Palestine,  reformed  Oriental  Churches,  and  Protestant 
converts  from  the  Catholic  sects  throughout  Turkey. 


REDEEMING   THE    NAME.  413 

The  Moslem  judgment  regarding  the  Oriental  christian 
sects  has  proved  more  intelligent  and  reliable  than  that 
of  Protestants.  To  the  ruling  popuhitions,  the  lesson 
of  the  centuries  has  been,  that  the  name  of  christian  is 
synonymous  with  hypocrisy,  the  idohitrous  worship  of 
pictures,  and  immorality.  Dr.  H.  Jessup  quotes  them  as 
saying  —  "We  have  lived  among  christians  for  1200 
years,  and  we  want  no  such  religion  as  theirs."  In  the 
beginning  the  occasion  largely  of  the  Moslem  movement 
had  been  a  popular  revulsion  against  not  only  the  gross 
idolatries  of  the  pagan  world,  but  also  the  dead  formalism 
and  notorious  corruption  of  nearly  all  the  christian 
churches  of  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries.  Mahomet 
and  the  Caliphs  struck  at  the  cross  with  the  same  conscien- 
tious indignation  with  which  they  ])roke  in  pieces  the 
idols  of  stone.  Among  these  Oriental  churches  since  then 
there  has  never  been  any  revival  of  true  religion  of 
sufficient  prominence  to  dissipate  these  first  impressions. 
It  has  been  one  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  of  Christian 
Missions  to  open  the  Moslem  mind  to  draw  distinction 
between  a  true  Protestant  evangelical  Christianity  and 
the  bastard  religions  of  a  nominal  christian  faith,  which 
with  millions  of  adherents  had  always  existed  by  the 
side,  or  rather  under  the  feet  of  self-confident  and 
arrogant  Islamism.  But  at  last  this  task  is  plainly  in 
process  of  accomplishment.  It  is  now  quite  frequently 
said  —  "Oh,  you  are  a  Protestant,  I  can  believe  you." 
''You  believers  in  the  Book  will  not  lie  like  christians." 
"Ah  !  you  are  not  christians  ;  you  are  Ingleze." 

The  situation  places  the  true  Church  of  Christ  under 
a  very  special  debt  of  obligation  to  render  its  evan- 
gelizing enterprises  in  Moslem  lands  as  strong  and 
efficient  as  possible.  We  cannot  throw  off  the  re- 
sponsibility of  the  inconsistencies  and  harmful  influence 
of  those  eastern  churches.  Their  shameful  records  are 
a  part  of  our  history.  Indeed  we  might  no-t  have  been 
the  possessors  of  such  scriptural  knowledge  and  com- 
})arative  purity  of  life,  had  it  not  been  that  the  Almighty 
overruled  their  evil  for  our  good.  Ours  the  double  duty 
to  correct  these  false  impressions  which  have  been  made, 


414  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

and  to  teach  the  world  of  Islam  that  to  all  evangelical 
believers  in  the  Book  throughout  Christendom,  there  is 
a  title  dearer  to  them  than  Protestant,  more  full  of 
meaning  and  heart,  more  closely  linking  all  the  children 
of  faith  with  their  Divine  Leader,  more  certain  to  l)e 
the  name  l)orne  at  least  to  the  end  of  time,  even  that  very 
title  which  to  all  the  followers  of  ^Jahomet  has  for  more 
than  a  thousand  years  meant  ignorance,  bigotry,  deceit, 
quarrelsomeness,  dishonesty  and  licentiousness.  We 
must  redeem  the  name  of  Christian.  When  over  half  a 
century  ago  the  American  missionaries  reached  Syria, 
they  found  that  the  intellectual  life  of  the  adherents  of 
the  decayed  oriental  churches  had  fallen  so  low,  that  it 
was  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  any  teachers  could 
be  secured  from  among  them  competent  to  give  even  the 
most  primary  lessons  in  Arabic.  The  situation  was 
very  embarrassing,  as  none  but  Mahometans  knew  how 
to  read,  and  they  would  not  teach  either  the  mission- 
aries or  the  adherents  of  the  native  christian  sects. 
Only  Moslems  were  admitted  to  the  instruction  in  the 
medrisehs  attached  to  the  mosques.  But  this  and  many 
other  difficulties  have  been  overcome.  Still  others  re- 
main to  be  encountered,  before  the  christian  has  in 
Moslem  lands  the  same  standing  he  has  secured  through- 
out the  more  civilized  portions  of  the  pagan  world. 

The  first  advance  movement  in  the  direction  of  the 
Mahometans  of  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa,  was  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  l:)ase  of  operations  by  the  Church  Mission 
Society  at  IMalta  in  1815.  Able  missionaries  were  then 
sent  forth  to  explore  Greece,  Syria,  Asia  Elinor,  Egypt 
and  Abyssinia.  Their  reports  were  published  in  several 
volumes,  entitled  Christian  Kesearches.  It  has  proved 
that  these  elaborate  treatises  have  given  great  prominence 
to  a  lesson  that  should  never  be  forgotten.  An  ounce 
of  missionary  experience  is  worth  more  than  a  pound  of 
the  most  able  mission  theorizing  based  upon  superficial 
observations.  Those  godly  men,  of  thorough  culture 
and  the  best  intentions,  were  very  confident,  after  their 
extensive  touring  of  the  Levant,  that  they  clearly  com- 
prehended the  situation,  and,  because  of  so  many  thou- 


SPECIAL    PUKPOSE    OF    THIS    VOLUME.  415 

sand  miles  travelled,  and  of  so  much  thought  and  con- 
versation and  correspondence,  were  permanent  authori- 
ties upon  the  subject  of  Christian  Missions  in  Turkey. 
Their  volumes  of  Christian  Researches  were  expected 
to  be  standard  classics  for  the  evangelization  of  Bible 
lands.  But  it  has  proved  that  they  were  mistaken  in 
many  of  their  leading  judgments,  that  the  opening  of 
several  of  the  stations  they  recommended  was  premature, 
and  that  generally  the  theories  of  the  work  they  inaugu- 
rated were  impracticable.  To-day  any  one  of  the 
scores  of  experienced  missionaries  in  Turkey  could 
communicate  more  wisdom  upon  the  religious  situation 
and  the  true  theory  of  missions  in  the  Levant,  than  all 
those  able  pioneer  theorists  together.  If  the  pages  of 
this  volume  represented  only  the  writer's  personal  im- 
pressions from  a  world-wide  range  of  observation  among 
mission  stations,  simply  his  judgments  and  his  theories 
of  method,  then  many  of  them  at  least  would  not  deserve 
being  written  or  read.  But  their  value,  if  at  all,  rests 
chiefly  upon  their  being  an  attempted  compilation  of  the 
matured  thoughts  and  feeUngs  of  hundreds  of  experienced 
missionaries,  met  in  frequent  conversations  face  to  face 
with  their  Avork  in  almost  all  lands  throuohout  the  world. 
More  especially  the  effort  is  to  voice  the  judgments  of 
those  many  missionary  toilers,  who  have  given  years  of 
practical  thought  to  many  of  these  questions  of  world 
evangelization,  but  have  not  possessed  the  facilities  or 
the  disposition  to  place  them  before  the  eyes  of  the 
churches  at  home. 

We  would  not  imply  undue  censure  of  those  mis- 
sionaries who  are  continually  supplying  our  missionary 
papers  and  magazines  with  touring  notes  and  observa- 
tions upon  their  work.  The  letters  of  some  of  them 
are  always  read  v>  ith  pleasure  and  profit.  But  generally 
in  the  mission  literature  of  the  day  there  is  a  lack  of 
something,  which  must  be  supplied  before  the  attention 
of  the  masses  of  the  Church  is  secured  and  held  per- 
manently. A  large  advance  would  be  made,  if  some 
plan  could  be  devised  for  bringing  out  the  vast  reserved 
talent   of  our   silent    but   thoughtful   and   experienced 


416  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

missionaries.  If  any  way  could  be  arranged  whereby 
many  of  our  foreign  toilers  could  be  induced  to  write 
occasionally  as  I  have  often  heard  them  talk  in  their 
work,  and  about  their  work,  and  concerning  the  general 
principles  and  methods  of  foreign  evangelization,  our 
missionary  literature  would  not  go  around  so  begging 
for  subscriptions.  But,  while  thus  emphasizing  the 
value  of  the  opinions  of  intelligent,  practical  mission- 
aries after  years  of  service,  there  are  some  things  to  be 
said  in  favor  of  the  judgments  of  passing  travellers, 
and  of  those  at  home  deeply  interested  in  the  work 
while  compelled  to  take  all  their  information  at  second 
hand.  ]Many  of  the  most  serious  embarrassments  among 
the  foreign  stations  have  very  evidently  appeared  to  me 
to  be  because  the  rule  has  been  too  sweepingly  applied, 
that  those  Avho  live  upon  the  held  know  better  how  to 
work  it  than  those  who  are  thousands  of  miles  away. 
If  foreign  missions  were  simply  the  work  of  the  mis- 
sionaries, it  would  be  vastl}^  simplified.  But  it  is  far 
more,  even  that  of  the  whole  ])ody  of  the  Christian 
Church  eno^ao^ed  in  the  evano^elization  of  the  heathen 
world.  Within  this  vast  range  for  thinking  and  plan- 
ning there  must  be  division  of  la1)or,  and  not  that 
simply  which  reduces  all  home  talent  to  the  mere 
(juestion  of  source  of  supply.  Better  that  some  mis- 
takes be  made  by  the  missionaries  under  a  measure  of 
home  direction,  than  that  the  churches  be  relieved 
entirely  of  responsibility  to  qualify  to  guide  in  part  the 
work  of  those  who  are  supported  by  their  contributions. 
There  are  special  promises  of  divine  companionship 
and  help  for  those  who  go,  and  there  are  special  prom- 
ises also  for  the  great  body  of  believers  whose  fulfilment 
are  equallv  essential  to  the  success  of  foreis^n  evano^eli- 
zation.  Often  have  I  been  impressed  that  a  superhuman 
wisdom  at  home  had  matured  'plans  for  the  laborers 
abroad.  Men  alone  could  not  have  acted  with  such 
comprehensive  sagacity.  It  is  the  right  way  for  mis- 
sionaries and  their  constituency  to  be  as  mutually  help- 
ful as  possible,  to  draw  each  from  the  other  the  utmost 
of  information  and  judgment    and   sympathy,  and  for 


RESPONSIBILITY    AT    THE    ROOMS.  417 

this  Mission  Boards  and  executive  officers  should 
prayerfully  bend  all  their  energies,  remembering  that 
they  are  not  the  Church,  that  they  only  represent  it, 
and  that  the  weakness  of  their  administration  will  be  in 
direct  proportion  to  their  self-consciousness  and  solici- 
tude of  power.  There  are  no  positions  christians  are 
called  upon  to  occupy,  needing  higher  personal  qualifi- 
cations and  more  surely  the  united  prayers  of  all,  than 
those  of  responsibility  at  the  rooms  of  the  various  mission 
societies  ;  and  duty  there  is  best  discharged  when  there 
is  the  least  practicable  assertion  of  authority,  the  least 
of  administration  and  manipulation,  and  when  the  con- 
stant anxiety  and  effort  are  to  bring  together  the 
churches  and  the  missionaries  in  the  utmost  intimacy 
and  cordiality. 

The  result  of  those  pioneer  mission  tours  throughout 
the  Levant,  though  a  failure  to  settle  questions  which 
required  years  of  personal  experience  upon  the  ground, 
was  to  stimulate  a  great  deal  of  missionary  interest  in 
these  Bible  lands,  particularly  among  the  Congrega- 
tional and  Presbyterian  churches  in  America.  In  1818 
Jerusalem  was  occupied  as  the  first  station  of  the  Amer- 
ican Board  in  these  lands  of  Islam.  Subsequently, 
however,  this  mission  was  abandoned  on  account  of 
Romish  intrigues,  political  disorder,  and  other  unex- 
pected obstacles,  which  for  the  time  seemed  insur- 
mountable, and  certainly  directed  attention  to  fields 
that  might  have  remained  unoccupied,  and  which  have 
proved  to  be  the  wisest  possible  basis  for  missionary 
operations  throughout  the  Levant.  Constantinople  was 
made  a  centre  of  missionary  operations  by  the  American 
Board  in  1831.  In  this  political  capital  of  Islam  the 
first  evangelical  church  of  Turkey  was  established  in 
1846,  after  which  immediatelv  others  were  oro^anized  at 
Nicomedia,  Adabazar,  and  Trebizond.  The  long  series 
of  preceding  years  had  been  spent  in  making  experi- 
ments and  securing  foundations  for  future  work.  Es- 
pecially the  plan  of  not  setting  up  any  new  church 
organization,  but  of  reviving  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
venerable  eastern  churches  was  thoroughly  tested  and 


418  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

found  to  ])e  impracticable.  With  the  consequent  estab- 
lishment distinctively  of  evangelical  Protestantism,  the 
cause  of  Christian  ilissions  in  Turke}^  very  consider- 
ably brightened.  The  aroused  hostility  of  the  old 
ecclesiastics  was  not  as  embarrassing  as  their  former 
half-hearted  co-operation.  Indeed,  they  themselves 
finally  forced  the  issue,  as  they  could  not  endure  the 
spirituality  and  Bible  fidelity  of  the  missionaries. 
Gradually,  since  then,  evangelical  mission  stations  have 
been  established  at  nearly  all  the  great  centres  of  influ- 
ence throughout  the  Levant.  In  addition  to  the  three 
societies  mentioned,  there  are  fourteen  other  missionary 
associations  engaged  at  present  in  the  work.  The  oper- 
ations of  the  American  Board  and  of  the  American 
Presb^lerian  Church,  whose  work  was  divided  oflf  in 
1871,  are  very  much  the  most  extensive.  The  former 
has  to-day  throughout  the  Ottoman  empire  162  mission- 
aries, nearly  600  native  preachers  and  teachers,  6,000 
communicants,  and  schools  of  all  grades  with  12,000 
scholars.  The  Presbyterian  missions  in  Syria  number 
35  missionaries,  143  native  preachers  and  teachers, 
nearly  900  communicants,  30,000  Protestant  adherents, 
and  4,375  scholars  in  the  common  schools,  female  semi- 
naries, Beirut  Protestant  College  (independently  organ- 
ized) and  in  the  Theological  institution.  At  Latakia, 
between  Alexandretta  and  Tripoli,  I  visited  an  interest- 
ing mission  station  of  the  American  United  Presbyte- 
rians, where  Rev.  Mr.  Easton  and  his  associates  are 
laboring  successfully.  But  of  the  principal  field  of  the 
operations  of  this  society  in  Egypt,  we  will  make  men- 
tion in  the  following  chapter  upon  Africa  and  its  evange- 
lization. 

The  "British  Syrian  Schools  and  Bible  Mission," 
lately  under  the  superintendency  of  Mrs.  B.  Thompson 
of  Beirut,  and  "the  Lebanon  Schools,"  under  Scottish 
management,  are  locating  many  effective  centres  of 
christian  influence  throughout  that  great  mountain 
range,  among  the  youth  and  the  women  of  both 
Oriental  Church  and  Moslem  populations.  The  former 
mission  was  the  immediate  outgrowth  of  English  sym- 


MASSACRES    RENDERED   IMPOSSIBLE.  419 

pathy  excited  by  the  terrible  massacres  of  1860,  with 
whose  details  not  long  after  I  became  sadly  familiar  at 
Damascus,  and  throughout  the  Lebanon  districts. 
Thousands  of  widows  "and  orphans  fled  to  Beirut  for 
protection  and  charity.  A  Woman's  Industrial  Refuge 
was  opened,  well  provided  with  needle- work  and  Bible 
instruction.  The  special  object  of  the  mission  was  to 
allay  the  vindictive  feelings  between  the  different  sects 
and  races,  which  had  been  excited  afresh  by  the  massa- 
cres. This  was  a  very  difficult  task,  mothers  retaining 
as  souvenirs  for  revenge  the  blood-stained  garments  of 
their  husbands,  brothers,  and  sons.  But  gradually  the 
genial  influences  of  christian  love  conquered,  and  now 
in  the  30  schools  which  have  grown  out  of  this  In- 
dustrial Refuge,  with  their  3,000  pupils,  the  children  of 
the  murdered  and  the  murderers  may  be  seen  daily 
studying  and  singing  together.  ''Madam,"  said  an 
enlightened  Mahometan  pasha  to  the  lady  principal, 
"such  schools  as  yours,  where  you  admit  all  sects,  will 
make  another  massacre  impossible." 

In  Syria  proper,  not  including  Palestine  or  Asia 
Minor,  that  is  between  Antioch  and  Nazareth,  there  are 
184  Christian  schools,  341  teachers,  10,585  scholars ; 
4,782  being  girls,  of  whom  1,000  are  Mahometans. 
In  Beirut  alone,  where  22  years  ago  not  probably  300 
children  attended  any  school,  now  there  are  9,000 
children  in  the  various  schools,  3,000  of  them  being 
under  Protestant  instruction.  The  Friends'  Foreign 
jNIission  Society  is  extending  its  boys'  and  girls'  schools 
throughout  Syria.  "Work  here  and  elsewhere  in  the 
Levant  is  being  carried  on  also  by  the  Church  Mission 
Society,  the  Irish  Presbyterians,  the  American  ]Method- 
ists,  the  Society  for  promoting  female  education  in  the 
east,  the  Crischona  Mission,  the  Berlin  Society,  the 
London  society  for  promoting  Christianity  among  the 
Jews,  and  the  society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel. 
Very  successful  hospital  and  school  enterprises  are 
being  prosecuted  in  Beirut  by  the  Deaconesses  of 
Kaiserwerth.  They  labor  also  in  Asia  Minor  and 
Egypt.     Bible  instruction  is  given  every  Sunday  by  the 


420  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

British  Syrian  schools  to  nearly  400  Turkish  women. 
It  is  gratifying  to  see  the  Church  Mission  Society  again 
strengthening' its  forces  in  Palestine.  It  has  English, 
Gernmn  and  Ara]:>ian  congregations  in  Jerusalem,  a 
Protestant  church  of  420  members,  mostly  Greek  con- 
verts, at  Nazareth ;  and  at  Joppa,  Nahlous,  Gaza  and 
Es  Salt,  across  the  Jordan,  21  schools,  751  scholars  and 
1,108  native  christians.  The  mission  schools  of  the 
late  Bishop  Gol)at  have  been  mosth'  placed  in  charge  of 
the  Church  i\lission  Society.  The  church  at  Es  Salt, 
the  ancient  Ramoth  Gilead,  is  composed  of  Bedouins. 

The  demand  for  Christian  schools  in  all  parts  of  the 
Ottoman  empire  is  now  rapidl}^  increasing  every  year. 
The  call  would  be  very  much  more  general,  if  Christian 
Missions  would  undertake  to  estal^lish  merely  secular 
schools  of  the  various  grades,  leaving  the  work  of  pro- 
ducing religious  impressions  to  the  silent  influence  of 
the  teachers'  lives,  and  to  the  leavening  eff'ect  of  correct 
scientific  instruction.  But  happily  the  prevailing,  if  not 
quite  unanimous  conviction  of  the  missionaries  is  that  a 
general  system  for  national  education  lies  outside  the 
limits  of  the  duty  of  Christian  ^Missions.  AVhile  the 
demand  in  man}^  other  parts  of  the  world  for  direct 
evangelization  is  so  great,  the  utmost  that  the  cause  in 
Turkey  can  reasonably  ask  of  the  churches  in  Christen- 
dom is  that  the  educational  desire  among  the  native 
converts  and  their  kindred  be  fostered  without  injuiy 
to  the  noble  spirit  of  self-reliance ;  that  higher  institu- 
tions for  thorough  scientific  christian  training  be 
established  at  the  great  centres  of  missionary  activity  to 
supply  preachers  and  teachers  as  demanded,  and  that 
such  a  number  of  mixed  common  schools  be  sustained 
under  missionary  supervision  and  control  as  shall  cor- 
rectly mould  the  national  system  of  education  that  is 
being  formed.  This  is  a  golden  mean  between  the 
extreme  theories,  of  refusing  on  the  one  hand  to  use 
schools  at  all  as  a  means  of  evangelization,  and  of 
adopting  them  exclusively  on  the  other  as  the  only 
hope  of  converting  the  world. 

Many  questions  right  here  spring  to  the  surface,  the 


QUESTIONS    TO    THE    SURFACE.  421 

majority  of  which  probably  cannot  be  answered,  until 
in  each  separate  case  all  the  circumstances  be  taken  into 
account.  How  many  should  be  the  schools  in  which 
the  children  of  other  than  Protestant  christian  parents 
shall  be  taught  by  missionaries  or  by  native  teachers 
supported  by  mission  funds  ?  When  is  the  legitimate 
demand  upon  the  missions  for  higher  education  to  be 
considered  as  reasonably  met?  How  large  a  proportion 
of  unconverted  and  hostile  native  youth,  }'et  aml^itious 
for  the  thorough  education  the  christian  colleges  alone 
furnish,  may  be  admitted  without  diverting  funds  given 
in  trust  for  purely  evangelistic  purposes?  May  anti- 
christian  or  anti-protestant  pupils  be  consistently 
excused  from  such  religious  exercises  in  the  mission 
schools,  as  their  parents  are  unwilling  that  they  should 
attend?  To  what  extent  is  it  wise  to  allow  the 
impression  in  Moslem  or  heathen  communities  that  the 
hope  of  Christianity  is  Avith  their  inexperienced  and  easily 
influenced  youth  ?  General  answers  to  these  and  other 
related  questions  can  be  given,  hut  they  shade  ofi'in  the 
one  direction  or  the  other  with  the  changing  circum- 
stances of  almost  every  different  mission  field.  As  Dr. 
Clark,  the  foreign  secretary  of  the  American  Board,  has 
well  said :  "  It  is  the  dictate  of  a  wise  missionary 
policy  to  adapt  methods  of  lal^or  to  the  varied  circum- 
stances of  different  fields.  While  the  general  principles 
to  be  observed  in  the  conduct  of  missionary  work  may 
now  be  regarded  as  settled,  and  while  the  great  object 
of  establishing  self-supporting,  self-propagating  churches 
is  kept  in  view,  the  application  of  these  principles  must 
be  suited  to  the  peculiar  circumstances  and  characteris- 
tics of  each  race  and  nation.  Methods  that  are  best 
suited  to  the  savage  tribes  of  Central  Africa  and  of 
Micronesia  might  not  be  found  available  in  a  civilized 
country  like  Japan  or  China.  These  varying  circum- 
stances and  conditions  must  be  regarded  not  only  in  the 
beginning  of  each  mission,  but  also  in  the  development 
of  the  work  begun." 

The  educational  question  becomes  a  very  difterent  one 
when  viewed  from  any  other  standpoint  than  evangel- 


422  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

izing  mission  responsibility.  If  benevolent  men  of 
christian  countries,  impressed  with  the  need  of  colleges 
in  mission  lands,  free  to  all  of  the  requisite  intellectual 
and  moral  qualifications,  no  matter  what  their  religious 
principles,  establish  such  institutions,  so  endowing  them 
that  their  running  expenses  shall  not  be  liable  to  fall 
back  upon  the  mission  treasury,  the  act  is  deserving  of 
all  commendation.  Especially  do  such  educational  en- 
terprises call  for  the  devout  thanksgiving  of  all  friends 
of  missions,  when  such  provisions  are  annexed  in  the 
charters,  as  require  administration  in  thorough  sympathy 
with  the  missions,  and  the  employment  in  all  the  leading 
chairs  of  instruction  of  christian  men  of  positive  and 
unequivocal  religious  influence.  Of  this  character  are 
the  Robert  College  at  Constantinople  and  the  Syrian 
Protestant  College.  The  former  is  located  at  Bebek, 
upon  a  sightly  elevation  above  the  Bosporus,  from 
which  I  shall  never  forget  the  extensive  prospect  reach- 
ing far  into  both  Europe  and  Asia,  including  scenes 
of  so.  much  thrilling  historic  interest,  and  so  much  that 
to-day  is  beautiful  in  nature  and  in  art.  Its  imposing 
quadrangular  building  of  gray  stone  was  erected  at  the 
expense  of  Mr.  Christopher  R.  Robert  of  New  York, 
who  gave  this  institution,  which  properly  bears  his 
name,  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Dr.  Cyrus 
Hamlin  of  the  American  Board  was  the  missionary 
mostly  interested  in  the  founding  of  the  college,  Avhich 
was  designed  to  advance  upon  the  collegiate  theological 
institutions  at  Marsovan,  Harpoot,  Marash  and  }»Iardin, 
and  to  furnish  to  all  young  men  a  thorough  course  of 
classical  and  scientific  instruction.  There  are  nearly  two 
hundred  students,  from  different  parts  of  Turkey,  but 
more  largely  from  Bulgaria.  The  teaching  is  done  in 
English,  and  the  course  of  instruction  is  very  similar  to 
that  in  American  colleges.  Following  in  part  the  ex- 
ample thus  set,  the  Central  Turkey  College  of  Aintab 
and  the  Armenian  College  of  Harpoot  have  since  been 
established,  the  former  having  at  present  about  80 
students,  and  the  latter  147. 

The  Syrian   Protestant  College    at   Beirut   is  under 


EDUCATION    AND    TRANSLATION.  423 

Presbyterian  trustees,  mostly  residing  in  America,  and, 
though  in  thorough  active  sympathy  with  the  mission 
work  in  S}T:'ia,  is  not  directed  hy  the  Mission  Society. 
Its  faculty  are  not  really  under  appointment  as  mission- 
aries, although  their  work  both  within  and  without  the 
class-room  lies  largely  in  the  same  evangelizing  direction. 
They  are  there  to  furnish  to  all  young  men,  whether 
Protestant  or  Catholic,  Greek,  Jacobite,  Jew  or  jMoslem, 
who  qualify  upon  examination,  thorough  classical  and 
scientific  instruction  from  the  christian  standpoint,  to- 
gether with  just  about  that  amount  of  religious  train- 
ing every  Sabbath,  and  at  other  times,  as  is  usually 
furnished  to  students  over  the  open  Bible  in  those 
American  colleges  which  are  evangelical  and  spiritually 
minded.  Every  day  religious  services  are  held  in  this 
college.  It  is  beautifully  situated  at  the  western  end  of 
the  city,  near  the  water,  and  with  an  ever-inspiring  view 
of  the  Lebanon  range.  There  are  39  students  in  the 
eclectic  and  preparatory  departments,  34  in  the  collegi- 
ate, and  34  in  the  medical  department.  For  a  first-class 
educational  institution,  accessory  to  a  mission  station, 
this  at  Beirut  is  a  model  one.  I  have  personal  occasion 
ever  to  remember  its  honored  president,  Eev.  Daniel 
Bliss,  D.  D.,  for  at  his  hospitable  home  we  dined  first, 
after  two  months'  camping  throughout  Syria  and  Pales- 
tine, and  according  to  the  special  tempting  invitation 
every  dish  was  American,  a  "  box  "  having  just  arrived. 
The  translation  of  the  Scriptures  into  the  various 
languages  spoken  throughout  the  Ottoman  empire  has 
wisely  occupied  a  large  share  of  the  attention  of  both 
the  Congregational  and  the  Presley terian  Boards.  They 
have  both  given  special  attention  also  to  the  preparation 
of  native  christian  literature.  The  names  of  Goodell, 
Riggs,  Schaufiler,  Pratt,  Herrick,  Smith  and  Van  Dyck 
should  ever  be  held  in  grateful  memory  by  all  interested 
in  furnishing  the  world  with  Bible  translations  and  evan- 
gelical literature.  Religious  newspapers  and  periodicals 
in  Arabic,  Armenian,  Armeno-Turkish,  Greco-Turkish, 
Bulgarian,  Osmanli-Turkish,  and  Greek,  reach  now 
through  the  mission  presses    of  Beirut  and    Constanti- 


424  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

nople,  and  through  supplementary  publishing  stations, 
all  parts  of  the  Ottoman  empire.  The  Weekly  Zornitza 
has  2,900  subscribers,  and  the  monthly  2,200,  among 
the  Bulgarians  of  Macedonia,  Eastern  Roumelia  and 
Bulgaria  proper.  Other  papers  issued  at  Constantinople 
in  other  languages  have  a  circulation  of  4,000  among 
250  towns  and  villages  throughout  Turkey.  In  Beirut 
there  are  five  Protestant  printing  presses,  the  one  be- 
longing to  the  Presbyterian  mission  turning  out  last 
year  5,504,640  pages  of  christian  literature,  mostly  in 
Arabic,  besides  7,755,750  pages  of  Scripture.  Dr.  H. 
Jessup  was  once  showing  to  a  famous  Bedouin  Sheik 
this  incalculably  useful  American  steam  printing  press. 
After  a  few  moment.^  the  Sheik  broke  the  silence  of 
surprise  with  the  exclamation  ;  "  Khowadja,  you  Franks 
have  conquered  everything  but  death.  In  that  respect 
you  and  the  Bedouin  stand  on  a  level,  for  death  conquers 
us  all."  "  Yes,"  replied  this  able  missionary,  ever  or 
the  alert  to  plant  a  seed  of  the  Kingdom ;  "Yes,  death 
conquers  us  all ;  but  there  is  One  who  has  conquered 
death  for  you  and  for  me,  our  Lord  and  Saviour,  Jesus 
Christ."  Six  Protestant  newspapers  and  magazines  are 
pu])lished  in  Beirut,  where  in  all  have  been  printed  since 
the  beginning  upwards  of  200,000,000  of  pages  of 
evangelical  literature  in  the  Arabic  language.  The  total 
number  of  copies  of  publications  of  the  American 
Board  at  Constantinople  thus  far  reach  3,000,000,  with 
about  350,000,000  of  pages.  The  headquarters  of  this 
latter  work,  situated  in  the  centre  of  Stamboul,  is  the 
most  gratifying  place  to  visit  in  the  Turkish  capital.  I 
would  much  rather  have  missed  meeting  the  Sultan, 
than  to  have  failed  seeing  this  monument  of  American 
christian  intelligence  and  liberality.  The  cost  was 
$60,000,  an  amount  that  was  most  economically  and 
wisely  expended.  The  very  walls  of  this  Bible  House 
are  eloquent  for  Christ  throughout  these  lands. 

No  event  lately  in  the  mission  workl  has  occurred  of 
greater  consequence  than  the  completion,  in  1865,  of 
the  Arabic  Bible.  Into  the  ten  other  principal  lano-uages 
of  the  empire  the  Scriptures  have  l)cen  translated,  and 


THE   BIBLE    IN    ARABIC.  425 

each  accomplished  task  made  an  epoch  of  general  interest 
and  advancement,  but  the  Arabic  translation  is  of  un- 
paralleled consequence.  This  language  is  the  common 
relio:ious  lans^uaofe  of  all  the  Moslem  nations  scattered 
over  Asia  and  Africa.  It  is  the  sacred  language  of  the 
Koran,  which  is  considered  to  have  been  inspired  in 
words,  letters,  and  vowel  points,  so  that  it  cannot  be 
translated.  To  attempt  the  translation  of  the  Koran  is 
regarded  by  the  orthodox  of  Islam  as  a  great  sin. 
The  Persian  Urdu  and  Malayan  versions  are  saved  by 
original  Arabic  interlineation.  The  Mahometans  of 
India,  the  Afghans,  Beluchs,  Persians,  Tartars,  Turks, 
Kurds,  Circassians,  Bosnians,  Albanians,  Rumelians, 
Yezbeks,  Arabs,  Egyptians,  Tunisians,  Algerines, 
Zanzibarians,  Moors,  Berbers,  Mandingoes,  and  many 
other  Asiatic  and  African  populations  read  their  scrip- 
tures according  to  Mahomet,  whenever  they  read  them 
at  all,  in  Arabic.  I  found  it  was  so  with  the  Chinese 
Mussulmen,  whom  I  met  as  far  distant  as  Peking.  I 
shall  never  forget  a  sharp  discussion,  most  tactfully 
managed  with  them  by  Dr.  Blodget,  in  the  porch  of 
their  mosque  in  that  city,  they  claiming  that  no  transla- 
tion of  the  Arabic  Koran  ever  had  or  could  be  made. 
The  many  thousands  of  students  from  all  over  the 
world  of  Islam,  preparing  for  the  priesthood  in  the 
Cairo  Moslem  University,  use  only  the  Arabic  in  their 
studies.  In  the  minds,  then,  of  these  multitudes  of 
various  nationalities,  a  chief  prejudice  against  the  sacred 
Book  of  the  Christians  is  removed,  as  Dr.  Jessup  de- 
clared at  the  Mildmay  Conference,  when  the  Bible  can 
be  given  to  them  in  the  Arabic, ''  in  a  classical,  accurate, 
and  elegant  version,  vowelled  in  the  style  of  the  Koran."' 
Such  a  version  was  finally  accomplished  after  twenty 
years  of  labor  on  the  part  of  those  best  qualified  Arabic 
scholars,  Drs.  Eli  Smith  and  Van  Dyck.  It  has  been 
electrotyped,  and  is  now  printed,  not  only  in  Beirut, 
but  also  by  the  American,  and  British  and  Foreign 
Bil)le  Societies  at  New  York  and  London.  I  have  not 
only  heard  missionaries  speak  with  unqualified  praise  of 
this  monument  to  christian  scholarship,  but  have  also 


426  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

taken  pains  to  introduce  the  subject  frequently  into 
conversation  with  native  scholars,  and  the  uniform  judg- 
ments expressed  were  that  the  new  Protestant  Aral^ic 
Bible  was  either  fully  equal  to  the  Koran  in  perfection 
of  style,  or  next  to  it  in  all  Arabic  literature.  There  is 
a  Mahometan  tradition  that :  "  In  the  latter  day  faith 
will  decay ;  a  cold,  odoriferous  wind  will  blow  from 
Syria,  which  shall  sweep  away  the  souls  of  all  the  faith- 
ful and  the  Koran  itself."  The  missionary  just  men- 
tioned, and  who  deserved  the  honor  lately  conferred  by 
being  elected  moderator  of  the  Presbyterian  General 
Assembly,  suggests  that  that  odoriferous  wind  has 
already  commenced  to  blow  from  off  the  steam  printing 
presses  in  Beirut,  which  are  now  scattering  the  Arabic 
Scriptures  all  over  the  Moslem  world.  I  have  met 
them  in  a  great  many  cities  and  villages  throughout 
Turkey.  Dr.  Bliss,  of  Constantinople,  says:  "I  doubt 
whether  there  is  "  (in  Turkey)  "a  city,  town,  or  village 
of  any  considerable  size,  where  j^ou  will  not  find  at 
least  one  copy  of  the  blessed  Word  of  God,  shedding 
light  all  around."  Arabic  Bibles  for  sale  I  have 
gladly  noticed  at  Baghdad  and  Cairo,  Jerusalem  and 
Damascus,  Orfah  and  Mosu],  in  Lucknow  India,  Peking 
China ;  and  they  may  be  found  in  almost  every  country 
between  Eastern  Asia  and  Western  Africa,  read  by 
people  speaking,  at  least,  thirty  diiferent  languages. 

Direct  personal  evangelization  in  Moslem  lands  is  not 
superseded  hy  the  Arabic  Bible,  but  through  this  new 
agency  Christian  Missions  have  reason  to  expect  results 
quite  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  the  sacred  volume. 
Before  its  influence  strong  walls  of  prejudice  and  intol- 
erance are  tottering  to  their  fall.  Deep  impressions  are 
being  made  upon  the  reading  and  thinking  elements  of 
the  world  of  Islam.  They  begin  to  see  that  Christianity 
has-  been  misrepresented  by  the  corrupt  and  effete 
Oriental  churches,  that  the  founders  of  the  Apostolic 
Church  exhil^ited  a  more  true  and  sublime  heroism 
than  Omar  and  Amrou,  Saladin  and  Akbar,  and  that  for 
permanent  national  prosperity  something  is  needed 
which  Haroun  al  Raschid  did  not  understand  at  Bagh- 


THE    CONFLICT   WITH   ISLAM.  427 

dad,  nor  Abdal-Raman  in  Spain.  It  is  becoming  more 
difficult  for  them  to  call  Protestants  "  infidels "  and 
"  Christian  dogs."  They  see  what  the  religion  of  the 
Bible  can  do  for  Bulgarians  and  Armenians,  Greeks  and 
Maronites,  Nestorians  and  Copts,  Hindus  and  Buddh- 
ists, and  they  cannot  silence  the  inquiry  of  its  possible 
influence  upon  themselves.  It  is  realized  that  the 
Koran  is  not  the  oracle  of  all  wisdom,  and  that  there  is 
a  purer  social  atmosphere  than  Mahomet  dreamed.  Yes, 
Christian  Missions  may  take  great  courage  to-day  in 
the  presence  of  Islam.  Many  assaults  all  along  the 
line  have  seemed  to  be  successfully  repelled  by  our  foe, 
but  this  Arabic  Bible  is  like  the  springing  of  a  mine 
right  under  their  fortifications,  and  a  great  breach  is 
made  through  which  the  army  of  the  Cross  can  enter. 
It  is  no  time  for  the  suggestion  that  missionaries  should 
seek  the  inspiration  of  broader  views  and  adopt  essen- 
tially diflerent  standards  of  success.  Islam  is  evidently 
doomed.  Christian  ^Missions  have  no  other  duty  con- 
cerning it  than  to  press  forward  their  present 
advantages.  No  thoughts  of  truce  and  compromise  can 
be  entertained,  though  urged  so  plausibly  by  Mr.  R. 
Bosworth  Smith  and  others.  Late  Moslem  successes  in 
Central  Africa,  China  and  the  Dutch  East. Indies  are 
by  no  means  an  offset  to  the  victories  of  the  Cross  in 
the  lands  of  Islam.  They  are  signs  of  desperation  on 
the  part  of  an  already  beaten  foe.  They  indicate  more 
of  weakness  than  of  strength  and  vitalitv,  when  careful 
inquiry  is  made  into  the  real  character  of  these  suc- 
cesses. The  reading  public  of  to-day  cannot  be  too 
earnestly  cautioned  against  reports  upon  world  reli- 
gions .to  the  disparagement  of  Christian  Missions, 
coming  from  those  whose  judgments  at  home  regarding 
evangelical  churches  are  evidently  so  inaccurate,  and 
whose  Broad  Churchism  has  quite  thoroughly  disposed 
of  the  distinctive  and  essential  doctrines  of  the  Gospel. 
To  the  Moslem  the  call  of  the  Gospel  is  news  indeed. 
The  invitation  is  from  the  submission  of  slaves  to  that 
of  children.  The  idea  of  mere  religious  bondage,  which 
Islam  teaches,  found  no  corrective  in  the  slavish  formal- 


428  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ism  of  the  corrupt  and  effete  Oriental  churches.  The 
preaching  and  the  Book  of  Protestant  missions  are  the 
discovery  of  a  truly  tender  parental  heart  in  the  great 
Allah.  And  of  late  the  Samaritanism  of  the  missionaries 
upon  many  a  battle-field,  in  many  a  hospital,  and 
throughout  extensive  famine  districts  has  emphasized 
the  strano-e  lesson  of  self-sacrificino:  love  amono^  man- 
kind  founded  in  the  love  of  God.  For  three  hundred 
miles  over  ancient  Assyria  I  rode  amid  the  dead  and 
the  dying,  through  a  region  where  no  crops  had  been 
gathered  for  two  years,  where  400,000  horses  and  cat- 
tle and  800,000  sheep  had  perished,  and  God  only 
knows  how  man}^  people.  Even  within  fifteen  miles  of 
jMosuI  I  saw  a  viHage  where  thirty  persons,  one-fifth  of 
the  population,  had  starved  to  death  within  the  previous 
two  months.  Often  the  bread  appeared  made  nine- 
tenths  of  grass  or  straw.  No  wonder  that  at  times  we 
could  not  buy  at  any  price  food  for  the  horses.  Such 
opportunity  has  been  bravely  improved  by  the  mission- 
aries, not  only  in  the  distril^ution  of  famine  funds,  sent 
out  from  England  and  America,  but  of  what  will  prove 
of  even  greater  value — impressions  of  the  unselfish- 
ness of  Christianity,  of  a  philanthropy  to  which  Islam 
and  all  the  world  are  total  strangers,  and  of  a  God  who 
is  neither  the  Allah  of  the  Koran  nor  the  heartless  idol 
of  a  dead  church  formalism. 

Though  it  is  very  desirable  that  English  and  Scotch 
Missions  take  a  much  larger  share  in  the  evangelization 
of  Turkey,  all  these  Bible  lands  are  to  be  congratulated 
in  that  so  great  a  majority  of  their  missionaries  are 
American  citizens.  In  a  comparative  study  of  mis- 
sionary qualifications  I  have  often  been  impressed  with 
the  pre-eminent  fitness  of  American  laborers  for  evan- 
gelizing heathen  and  down-trodden  populations  of 
anti-christian  lands.  There  is  that  in  the  democratic 
atmosphere  of  the  great  re})ublic,  which  enables  our 
missionaries  to  get  right  down  easily  and  naturally  to  a 
level  with  the  wretched  millions  they  would  save.  The 
English  ma}^  be  equally  anxious  to  thoroughly  identify 
themselves  with  their  humble  work,  but  generally  they 


THE    WOMEN    OF   TURKEY.  429 

manifest  a  constitutional  awkwardness  about  it  that  in- 
terferes with  perfect  success.  It  is  very  hard,  often 
impossible,  for  them  to  lay  aside  that  caste  feeling  and 
manner,  which  seem  almost  a  necessary  accompani- 
ment of  education  and  social  opportunity  in  Great 
Britain.  Then  Americans  are  specially  enterprising, 
and  accustomed  to  go  ahead  on  their  own  responsibility  ; 
characteristics  the  more  frequently  needed  upon  the 
foreign  field.  Moreover,  the  almost  universally  pre- 
vailing principle  of  total  abstinence  among  missionaries 
from  America  gives  them  a  decided  advantage  in  moral 
influence  over  the  natives.  And  still  again  no  ambitious 
political  designs  will  be  attached  to  the  presence  of 
our  missionaries  in  those  far-off  lands.  I  may  add  that 
the  great  distance  has  a  tendency  to  lengthen  the  terms 
of  unln'oken  work,  which,  if  health  can  be  preserved, 
is  a  decided  advantage. 

Overlooking  the  Mosque  of  St.  Sophia  and  the 
Sultan's  seraglio  and  palaces  at  Constantinople,  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  Bosporus  upon  the  heights  of 
Scutari  is  a  large  seminary  for  the  education  of  native 
girls.  The  building  was  erected  at  a  cost  of  $50,000  by 
the  christian  women  of  America.  It  is  fitting  that  this 
institution  should  stand  there  in  sight  of  the  leaders 
of  the  whole  Turkish  and  Moslem  world,  as  a  rebuke 
to  their  degradation  of  woman,  and  a  warning  that  she 
shall  receive  a  social  and  religious  elevation  despite  their 
cruel  tyranny  and  beastly  lusts.  The  American  Board 
has  similar  institutions  at  Samokov,  Broosa,  Manisa, 
Marsovan,  Aintab,  Marash,  Harpoot,  and  Mardin ;  and 
the  Presbyterian  mission  has  them  at  Beirut,  Sidon  and 
Tripoli .  There  are  others ,  as  of  the  United  Presbyterians 
at  Latakia,  besides  mixed  schools  like  that  of  Miss 
Whately  at  Cairo.  Evidently  the  work  of  woman  for 
woman  is  being  undertaken  in  dead  earnest.  Attention 
previously  had  been  directed  to  general  preaching,  and 
instruction  and  translation.  There  had  been  little  done 
in  searching  out  the  degraded,  ignorant  and  secluded 
women  of  the  land.  Until  however  this  was  done,  all 
else  was  sure  to  prove  one-sided  and  ineffectual.     The 


430  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

men  could  not  be  elevated  socially  and  spiritually  with 
mere  dolls  and  slaves  in  their  homes.  American  christian 
women,  taught  their  power  of  organization  by  experience 
in  the  Christian  and  Sanitary  Commissions  of  our  civil 
war,  saw  the  situation,  and  nobly  have  they  responded 
to  the  call  of  God.  They  have  sent  scores  of  their 
number  to  take  up  the  work,  to  which  the  wives  of 
missionaries  could  give  but  partial  attention,  establishing 
here  and  in  many  other  lands  female  schools,  then  follow- 
ing their  pupils  to  their  homes,  and  constantly  enlarging 
the  sphere  of  their  blessed  influence  among  the  native 
girls,  sisters,  wives  and  mothers,  whose  sul^tle  power 
after  all  moulds  the  history  of  nations.  This  "  woman's 
work  for  woman"  movement  is  to  contribute  most 
materially  to  the  overthrow  especially  of  Islamism  and 
Brahmanism.  The  doors  of  opportunity  are  opening 
more  rapidly  than  they  are  entered.  To  the  women 
missionaries  the  zenanas  and  harems  are  being  unbarred. 
Educated  natives  see  the  inconsistency  and  harmful 
influence  of  degraded,  ignorant  and  superstitious  com- 
panionships. Moslems  are  realizing  at  least  that  their 
Avomen  should  have  some  knowledo^e  and  refinement  for 
the  sake  of  their  sons.  What  opportunity  for  the  still 
greater  interest  of  women  in  christian  lands  !  Remember, 
sisters,  that  300,000,000  of  your  sex  are  living  in 
the  only  Buddhist  hope  beyond  this  world  of  perhaps 
being  born  again  a  man  instead  of  a  toad  or  a  snake  ;  that 
nearly  90,000,000  more  of  your  sex  are  in  the  most 
abject  slavery  body  and  soul  to  their  Hindu  lords  ;  and 
that  still  80,000,000  more  are  in  Moslem  harems, 
unloved,  uncared  for  but  as  tools  of  lust,  and  in  prospect 
the  certainty  of  being  supplanted  in  the  dismal  remnant 
of  their  conjugal  aflfections  by  "the  black-eyed  houris" 
promised  the  faithful  by  Mahomet.  Remember  all  this, 
christian  sisters  of  America ;  and,  by  all  the  demand 
there  is  for  your  help,  by  all  the  gratitude  you  feel  to 
God  for  your  contrasted  condition,  and  by  all  the 
solemnities  of  that  rapidly  approaching  hour  when  your 
opportunities  in  this  world  are  ended,  l)e  entreated  to  do 
your  full  duty  with  prayer  and  contributions  and  in- 
fluence in  the  woman's  mission  cause  ! 


A  pasha's  prediction.  431 

There  are  many  other  specially  favoring  circumstances 
connected  with  Christian  Mission  work  in  Turkey. 
These  lands  are  too  near  Rome  to  become  Romanized. 
Alas,  that  we  cannot  recognize  their  proximity  to  Prot- 
estant Europe  as  an  unmixed  blessing !  The  Moslem 
view^s  upon  inspiration  and  prayer  constitute  important 
vantage  ground.  There  are  special  helps  here  to  I>il)le 
interpretation  in  the' manners  and  customs  of  the  people, 
and  in  the  topography  and  products  of  the  country. 
Here  as  nowhere  else  in  the  world  are  testimonies  to 
Christianity  in  fulfilled  prophecy  and  records  of  stone. 
Christ  is  specially  known  to  Moslems  as  having  been  the 
Great  Healer,  which  helps  them  to  appreciate  the 
medical  department  in  Christian  Mission  work,  and  gives 
unusual  opportunity  through  this  channel  for  evangelical 
instruction.  We  have  noted  how  unusually  well  located 
all  the  leading  stations  are  for  the  new  and  victorious 
campaign  that  is  about  opening.  But  I  am  surprised 
that  Baghdad  and  Mosul  are  not  occupied  other  than  as 
outlying  posts  in  charge  of  native  christians.  Either  the 
American  Board  or  the  Presl>yterian  Mission  should 
locate  missionaries  immediately  at  both  of  these  great 
centres  of  population,  or  the  Church  Missionary  Society 
of  England  should  receive  intimation  that  its  occupancy 
of  the  Tigris  valley  would  be  welcomed.  One  of  the 
leading  pashas  of  the  Empire,  returning  my  formal 
call,  acknowledged  to  me  ''  The  signs  of  the  times  are 
altogether  favorable  to  you  Protestants.  We  are 
falling,  and  you  are  rising.  I  shall  die  in  the  faith  of 
the  Koran,  but  my  grandchildren  will  believe  in  your 
Bible." 


432  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

AFRICA  AND  ITS  EVANGELIZATION. 

.LTHOUGH  the  great  continent  of  Africa 
has  been  truthfully  described  as  ''  one 
universal  den  of  desolation,  misery,  and 
crime,"  and  the  general  idea  is  that  this 
vast  territory  is  inhal)ited  only  by  low  wild 
races  which  have  su})plied  the  slave  markets 
of  the  world,  we  approach  yonder  Egyp- 
tian coast  off  the  harbor  of  Alexandria  with  other 
memories  of  advanced  civilizations  and  world-wide 
influences.  The  very  name  Africa,  being  the  Latin  of 
the  Phoenician  "Afr\'gha,"  which  Carthage  assumed 
as  a  "  colony"  of  Tyre,  recalls  that  active  and  ener- 
getic race  of  the  maritime  and  commercial  Phoenicia, 
which  discovered  the  art  of  writing  by  letters,  voyaged 
to  Britain,  India  and  perhaps  doubled  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  and  founded  the  colony  of  Carthage,  which  in  the 
annals  of  architecture  and  war  made  forever  memorable 
the  names  of  Dido  and  Hannibal.  We  recall  the  terrible 
overthrow  of  this  proud  mistress  of  the  Mediterranean 
by  the  rising  power  of  Rome,  the  honoring  of  the  con- 
queror with  the  title  of  the  younger  Africanus,  and  the 
conversion  of  the  territory  into  the  Roman  province  of 
Africa.  From  the  Bible,  that  best  guide-book  of  Bible 
lands,  we  have  read  over  again  of  Abraham's  visit  to 
Egypt  at  the  time  probably  of  the  reign  of  UsertesenH, 
of  the  sojourn  of  Joseph  at  the  court  of  Pharaoh,  alluded 
to  in  a  papyrus  and  in  an  inscription  at  El-Kab,  of  the 
oppression  of  the  Israelites  under  Rameses  H. ,  the  great 
Sesostris  of  the  Greeks,  and  of  their  exodus  from  before 
the  face  of  Mernephthah.     Nor  have  we  forgotten  the 


CIVILIZATION   AND    INFLUENCE    OF   ANCIENT    EGYPT.     433 

second  chapter  of  Matthew,  with  its  record  of  the  flight 
of  Mary  and  Joseph  and  the  infant  Lord  into  Egypt, 
from  before  the  murderous  design  of  Herod,  according 
to  the  prophecy  of  Hosea. 

What  a  wonderful  civilization  that  of  ancient  Egypt, 
the  mother  of  history  !  Says  Bunsen,  — ''  History  was 
born  on  that  night  when  Moses,  with  the  law  of  God  in 
his  heart,  led  the  people  of  Israel  out  of  Egypt."  We 
think  of  how  the  arts  and  sciences  flourished  here  upon 
the  banks  of  the  Nile,  of  their  gloomy  religion  and 
powerful  priesthood,  which  found  their  Rome,  their 
Moscow,  their  Kiyoto  in  Heliopolis  —  the  Beth-shemesh 
of  Jeremiah,  of  their  Osiris,  Serapis  and  Isis,  and  of 
their  papyri,  obelisks  and  hieroglyphics.  We  recall  the 
Pharaohs  of  the  Theban  dynasty,  their  proud  capital, 
the  No-Ammon  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  Hekatompy- 
los  Thebe  of  Homer,  stretchino^  33  miles  alonor  both 
banks  of  the  Nile,  with  its  temple  avenue  of  two  miles 
lined  with  more  than  1200  colossal  sphinxes,  leading  to 
the  enormous  and  imposing  cluster  of  religious  struc- 
tures which  took  2,500  years  in  building.  We  recall 
Moeris  and  Cheops  of  Memphis,  the  former's  artificial 
lake,  and  the  latter's  prodigious  pyramid,  requiring  for 
construction  the  work  of  100,000  men  for  40  years,  and 
containing  a  mass  of  stone  equal  to  a  wall  ten  feet  high 
and  a  foot  and  a  half  broad  reaching  around  the  entire 
coast  of  England,  883  miles.  Napoleon  might  have 
said  to  his  soldiers,  before  the  battle  with  the  Mame- 
lukes, —  Fifty,  instead  of  "  Forty  centuries  look  down 
upon  you!" — for  this  largest  pyramid  was  probably 
built  over  thirty  centuries  before  Christ.  It  long  ante- 
dated Homer  and  the  founding  of  Rome.  It  had  stood 
for  many  centuries  when  Moses  and  Abraham  lived. 

The  influence  of  the  civilization  of  northeastern 
Africa  has  been  felt  throughout  the  world.  While  it 
cannot  be  allowed  that  Moses  received  his  declared 
revelations  from  the  instruction  of  the  Egyptian  tena- 
ples,  nor  that  the  ihysteries  of  Christianity  took  their 
rise  under  the  shadow  of  Theban  colossi  and  Memphitic 
pyramids,  many  and  important  influences  reached  forth 


434  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

from  the  banks  of  the  Nile  into  all  subsequent  Hebrew 
and  Christian  Church  histor}^  We  shall  handle  the 
scarab^ei  thoughtfully,  those  models  of  the  black  beetle, 
whose  habits  made  them  to  be  worshipped  as  emblems 
of  immortality.  The  Egj^ptian  grave  and  solemn  view 
of  life,  as  given  chiefly  as  preparation  for  life  to  come, 
is  reflected  by  all  their  statuary  and  architecture.  We 
sit  in  the  frequently  represented  Hall  of  Judgment  with 
Osiris  upon  the  throne,  as  the  scribe  reads  from  the 
record-book  of  life,  and  the  destiny  of  an  immortal 
soul  is  decided.  We  wonder  how  much  philosophy 
Plato  and  Pythagoras  transplanted  from  Egypt  to 
Greece,  as  also  whether  the  Roman  mythology  found 
here  its  Styx  and  its  Charon.  But  we  cannot  linger  at 
a  task  which  must  be  assigned  to  other  pages. 

Compared  with  some  of  these  antiquities  it  does  not 
seem  so  long  ago,  when  Alexandria  was  founded  by  the 
great  conqueror  and  made  his  burial-place ;  when  the 
Ptolemaic  dynasty  was  established,  and  when  finally  it 
was  overthrown  by  the  stern  Octavius,  who  could  not, 
like  Antony,  be  impressed  by  the  licentious  'Cleopatra. 
On  these  African  shores  the  Septuagint  was  translated, 
Clement  and  Origen  founded  their  famous  theological 
institution,  and  ''  the  father  of  Orthodoxy,"  Athanasius, 
defended  the  eternal  deity  of  Christ  against  the  Arian 
heresy.  Here  Mark  established  a  branch  of  the  Church, 
that  led  for  awhile  throughout  all  the  East.  Here  were 
developed  that  anchoretism  and  that  monasticism,  which 
have  held  such  mighty  sway  through  centuries  of  Church 
history.  Here  led  the  way  the  hermit  Anthony  and  the 
monk  Pachomius,  whose  following,  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, says  Dr.  Schaff,  are  supposed  to  have  equalled  the 
populations  of  all  the  cities  of  Egypt.  They  lived 
among  the  tombs  and  caves  of  the  Lybian  desert.  The 
great  Augustine,  superior  to  all  the  church  fathers,  was 
from  North  Africa.  The  Moors,  who  for  centuries  in 
Spain  stood  so  high  in  civilization,  were  a  dark-com- 
plexioned people,  also  from  the  northern  coast  of 
Africa. 

This  continent  is  about  5,000  miles  in  both  length  and 


435 

breadth  ;  has  more  habitable  land  than  either  Asia  or 
North  America,  and  contains  probably  a  population  of 
200,000,000.  While  there  is  more  desrradation  and 
wretchedness  to  be  met  here  than  in  any  other  quarter 
of  the  globe,  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose 
that  eA^en  a  majority  are  mere  savages.  There  are  many 
cities,  ranging  from  50,000  to  200,000  inhabitants. 
European  civilization,  chie%  through  Moslem  channels, 
has  spread  its  influence  largely  over  northern  Africa, 
and  along  up  the  valley  of  the  Nile  into  Abyssinia, 
Durfur  and  Soudan.  Portuguese,  Dutch,  French,  and 
especially  English  colonies  at  numerous  places  all  around 
the  coast  have  extensively  introduced  both  the  good  and 
the  evil  of  European  life.  The  British  possessions  at 
the  South,  with  their  most  improved  methods  of  agri- 
culture, their  network  of  well  constructed  roads,  their 
comfortal)le  dwellings  and  extensive  manufactories  and 
telegraphs,  and  even  railroads,  have  projected  civilizing 
influences  among  many  millions  far  up  into  the  interior. 
At  present  from  Zanzibar  upon  the  East,  a  great  tidal 
wave  of  christian  enlightenment  is  sweeping  inward 
toward  the  vast  lake  regions,  destined  to  accomplish 
within  the  next  ten  years  results,  second  only  to  those 
attained  during  the  last  decade  in  Japan.  Correspond- 
ing influences  are  gathering  at  the  mouths  of  the  Zam- 
bezi, the  Niger,  the  Congo,  the  Gambia,  the  Gaboon, 
the  Coanza,  and  at  many  other  points  along  the  immense 
coast-line  of  "  the  dark  continent." 

The  best  authorities  now  classify  Africa's  population 
under  the  six  following  groups  :  I.  Aramaeans  or  Syro- 
Arabians,  which  include  the  Aral)  immigrations  and 
the  Amharic  tribes  of  Abyssinia.  II.  Hamites,  a  gen- 
eral term,  including  the  Coptic  descendants  of  the  an- 
cient Egyptians,  the  Gallas  and  other  Nilotic  races,  and 
the  Berbers  or  Amazirg  or  Imoshagh  of  the  Sahara 
desert  and  the  Atlas  mountains.  III.  Kaffirs  or  Ban- 
tus,  which  include  the  famous  Zulus  and  other  subdivis- 
ions upon  the  Southeast.  TV.  Hottentots,  including  the 
Bushmen  and  other  kindred  tribes  of  the  South.  V. 
Fulahs,  of  West  Central  Africa.    And,  VI.  Negroes,  of 


436  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Eastern,  Western  and  the  great  Central  Africa.  There 
are  also  several  hundred  thousand  Europeans,  Turks 
and  other  Asiatics.  The  Aramaeans  form  the  leading 
group  of  the  indigenous  populations.  They  have  for 
many  ages  been  the  most  influential  element,  carrying 
on  extensive  commerce  in  the  second  century  with 
India,  according  to  Arrian  in  his  "  Periplus,"  and  in  the 
seventh  century  under  the  banner  of  Mahomet,  as  is 
well  known,  overrunning  most  of  the  continent.  They 
have  also  been  the  most  enterprising  for  centuries  in  the 
supply  of  the  slave  markets  of  the  world.  They  are  to 
Africa  what  the  Jews  are  to  Europe,  the  capitalists  and 
the  bankers  and  the  pawnbrokers.  They  contribute 
largely  to  the  crowded  Moslem  university  of  Cairo, 
whose  ten  thousand  students,  however,  are  chiefly  due 
to  eagerness  all  over  the  Moslem  world  to  escape  army 
conscription.  The  Kaffir  Zulus  are  naturally  a  much 
superior  race  to  the  Xegro,  with  whom  Americans  have 
become  so  familiar.  Their  climate  and  soil  are  the  best 
in  Africa  for  the  development  of  physical  and  moral 
character.  Of  their  courage  upon  the  battlefield  the 
British  and  the  world  lately  had  full  proof  at  Sandhlwana. 
The  latest  authority  oives  the  number  of  the  whole  Kaffir 
stock  as  21,000,000,'inhabiting  2,500,000  square  miles, 
an  extent  of  territory  equal  to  nearly  twice  the  size  of 
India.  From  Cape  Colony  to  Lake  Bangweolo  all  these 
natives  speak  dialects  of  a  common  language,  and  are 
cultivators  of  the  soil,  not  merely  herdsmen  and  hunters, 
like  the  Hottentots  and  Bushmen.  Although  they  are 
polygamists,  liuying  their  wives,  and  treating  them  as 
slaves  to  till  the  ground,  and  although  they  are  gross 
fetichists,  cruek  and  bloodthirsty,  they  are  evidently  an 
increasing  race,  and  furnish  the  most  inviting  field  in  all 
Africa  to  Christian  Missions.  The  Fulahs  are  very 
numerous,  are  chiefly  Moslems,  and  have  shown  in  war 
and  the  propagation  of  Islam  a  great  deal  of  vigor  and 
energ}^  It  is  probable  that  they,  as  well  as  the  Joloflfs, 
were  formerly  settled  upon  the  southern  shore  of  the 
Mediterranean,  and  were  driven  before  the  Saracen  in- 
vasion of  the  seventh  century. 


SLAVEKY  AND  POLYGAMY.  437 

The  negro  is  the  most  degraded  of  the  African  races, 
and  yet  evidently  the  cause  is  not  so  much  in  his  nature 
as  in  his  circumstances.  As  in  America,  his  has  been 
the  most  down-trodden  race  upon  the  continent.  Even 
with  the  well-known  record  of  slavery  in  the  Southern 
States  and  in  the  West  Indies,  it  is  very  difficult  to  form 
an  adequate  conception  of  the  wretchedness  of  the  pre- 
vailing negro  life  between  the  tropics  in  Africa.  Scores  of 
millions  of  people  are  as  near  the  condition  of  animals  as 
is  possible  for  human  beings.  Cannibalism  was  frightfully 
prevalent  among  them,  until  the  slave  trade  made  the 
other  crime  the  more  profitable.  Polygamy  is  universal, 
and  of  the  most  utterly  abandoned  character.  Among 
many  tribes  modesty  is  unknown.  In  many  districts 
the  slaves  arc  from  three  to  ten  times  as  numerous  as 
their  masters,  and  throughout  Xegroland  every  other 
person  on  an  average  is  in  bondage.  The  master  of 
to-day  may  be  the  slave  to-morrow,  kidnapped  or  made 
a  prisoner  of  war  by  some  other  tribe.  Says  Dr.  Barth, 
who  spent  five  years  exploring  in  the  Soudan  :  "  If  these 
domestic  slaves  do  not  of  themselves  maintain  their  num- 
bers, then  the  deficiency  arising  from  ordinary  mortality 
must  constantly  be  kept  up  by  a  new  supply,  which  can 
only  be  obtained  hy  kidnapping,  or  more  generally  by 
predatory  incursions."  The  Austrian  explorer.  Dr. 
Emil  Holub,  relates,  among  his  experiences  upon  the 
Zambezi,  such  customs  as  drowning  the  infirm  and 
destitute,  poisoning  and  burning  on  mere  suspicion,  and 
amputating  children's  fingers  and  toes  as  charms  against 
disease.  He  speaks  of  "  their  dishonesty  being  thor- 
oughly ingrained,"  and  that :  "  In  addition  to  their 
other  disgusting  qualities,  all  the  Makalakas  south  of 
the  Zambezi,  especially  those  under  Matabele  rule,  are 
indescribably  dirty.  With  the  exception  of  those  who 
have  been  in  service  under  white  men,  I  believe  the 
majority  of  them  have  not  washed  for  years,  and  I  saw 
women  wearing  strings  upon  strings  of  beads,  several 
pounds  in  weight,  of  which  the  undermost  layers  were 
literally  sticking  to  their  skins."  If  these  are  glimpses  . 
under   more   favored   Kaffir   influence,   woful,    indeed, 


438  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

must  be  the  general  condition  in  the  still  farther  in- 
terior. No  material  object  is  too  low  and  contemptible 
to  be  made  the  negro's  god.  His  hoe,  a  stick,  a  stone, 
a  pile  of  ofial,  anything  will  answer  for  his  worship. 
Demons  and  evil  spirits  are  sought  to  be  propitiated  by 
the  most  cruel  rites,  often  by  human  sacrifices.  In  a 
portraiture  of  the  Guinea  negroes,  Mr.  Wilson  writes : 
"  Falsehood  is  universal.  Chastity  is  an  idea  for  which 
they  have  no  word,  and  of  which  they  can  scarcely  form 
a  conception."  After  an  enumeration  of  almost  every 
form  of  vice,  he  adds  :  "It  is  almost  impossible  to  say 
what  vice  is  pre-eminent." 

All  the  civilized  world  has  shuddered  at  the  horrible 
reports,  which  have  come  from  the  negro  kingdoms  of 
Ashanti  and  Dahomey.  Being  near  the  Atlantic  coast, 
their  savage  "  customs  "  have  become  better  known  than 
those  prevailing  in  the  interior,  but  probably  there  is 
much  more  of  the  same  terrible  sort  throughout  Xegro- 
land.  Both  Kumasi  and  Abomey,  the  capitals  of  these 
regions  of  woe,  are  "vast  charnel-houses,  in  which,  for 
years  past,  monarch,  chiefs,  and  people  have  found  their 
main  pleasure  and  excitement  in  the  sacrifice  of  human 
beings,  which  they  invest  with  all  the  state  and 
pageantry  they  are  capable  of  displaying."  Hundreds, 
and  sometimes  thousands,  of  human  l)eings  are  sacrificed 
every  3^ear.  These  "  customs,"  as  they  are  called,  have 
been  described  as  "a  continual  round  of  gormandizing, 
butchery,  and  the  wildest  license."  Their  theory  is 
that  men  carry  into  the  spirit  world  the  rank  they  hold 
here.  At  death  therefore  the  kings  and  chief  men  must 
be  accompanied  with  the  proper  retinue  of  slaves,  and 
from  time  to  time  subsequently  a  due  regard  to  them 
requires  through  murder  the  recruiting  of  the  number  of 
their  spiritual  attendants.  Whenever  the  king  wishes 
to  communicate  with  the  dead,  he  A^^'ites  a  letter,  hands 
it  to  a  messenger,  and  then  cuts  ofi"  that  messenger's 
head.  They  have  in  Dahomey  an  annual  "  custom," 
called  "  watering  the  king's  spirits,"  which  consists  in 
offering  a  number  of  human  sacrifices  at  each  of  the 
royal  graves  of  the  present  dynasty.     In  addition  the 


A   LAND    DESERVING   BETTER.  .439 

last  king  introduced  an  annual  June  massacre  to  com- 
memorate a  victory  with  which  he  was  much  elated. 
In  Ashanti  "the  customs"  are  said  to  be  still  more 
bloody,  from  the  reason  probably  that  there  is  a  much 
larger  population  to  furnish  a  constant  supply  for  human 
sacrifice.  It  is  also  reported  that  the  Ashanti  king's 
body-guard  of  three  or  four  thousand  Amazons,  or 
female  warriors,  are  much  more  bloodthirsty  than  the 
men.  As  these  ferocious  female  corps  date  from  1728, 
it  is  probable  that  they  contributed  to  the  British  de- 
feats in  the  earlier  engagements  of  both  the  wars  of  1824 
and  1863. 

The  land  of  Africa  deserves  far  better  of  its  inhabi- 
tants. The  flat,  marshy  alluvial  shore,  with ^  its  ma- 
larial exhalations,  extending  around  nearly  the  entire 
continent,  and  accountable  for  the  unhealthy  reputation 
of  this  quarter  of  the  globe,  gradually  merges  into 
beautiful  park-like  country,  that  introduces  to  highland 
regions,  with  mountains  and  valleys  and  extensive  table 
lands,  forests  and  rivers  and  most  picturesque  lakes. 
Mr.  Burton  describes  the  country  of  Usukuma,  lying 
between  the  east  coast  and  Tanganyika,  as  ''  rich  and 
well  cultivated" — ''  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey." 
Mr.  Stanley  testifies  that  Uganda,  the  region  to  the 
northwest  of  Victoria  Nyanza,  is  "inexhaustibly  fertile, 
with  a  great  variety  of  cereals,  vegetables  and  fruits." 
Farther^  east  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Gallas,  Mr. 
Eebmann  "  passed  through  beautiful  scenery,  and  an 
Alpine  region  which  reminded  him  of  Switzerland." 
Dr.  Holub  describes  the  valley  of  the  Zambezi  as 
"  thickly  wooded,"  and  is  reminded  by  neighboring  hill 
terraces  "  richl}'  clad  with  tropical  vegetation,  of  the 
hanging  gardens  of  Semiramis."  In  Sierra  Leone  and 
vicinity,  cotton,  sugar,  cocoa,  arrowroot,  and  all  tropi- 
cal products  flourish.  Higher  up  in  the  interior,  around 
Lake  Chad  and  the  tributaries  to  the  Niger,  it  is  re- 
ported that  the  "region  has  wonderful  capabilities, 
abounding  in  fertile  lands,  ornamented  with  fine  timber 
and  irrigated  by  large  navigable  rivers  and  central  lakes, 
so  that  under  a  settled  government  any  amount  of  grain, 


440  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

sugar,  cotton,  indigo,  and  other  commodities  of  trade 
might  be  produced."  "In  Yoruba,"  says  a  traveller,  "  the 
hillsides  and  banks  of  streams  often  present  the  appear- 
ance of  solid  walls  of  leaves  and  flowers.  The  grass  on 
the  prairies  is  from  eight  to  twelve  feet  high,  and  almost 
impervious."  From  Natal  the  report  is  :  "You  can 
find  flowers  every  month  in  the  year,  and  at  times  so 
thick  in  the  open  fields  that  scarce  a  step  could  be  taken 
without  treading  some  of  them  under  foot."  "  Bihe," 
says  Major  de  Serpa  Pinto,  "forming  the  southern 
boundary  of  the  Benguelan  highlands,  stands  5000  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  possesses  great  advantages 
in  its  salubrity,  and  its  commercial  and  agricultural 
capabilities,  Avhich  highly  recommend  it  to  European  at- 
tention." We  need  not  ask  the  testimon}^  of  other  ex- 
plorers, to  realize  that  as  a  countr}^  Africa  deserves  a 
far  better  prevailing  civilization. 

In  the  light  of  explorations,  chiefly  made  since  1850, 
it  seems  very  strange  reading,  that  report  of  the  British 
"African  Association  "of  1788,  which  included  all  that  was 
known  of  this  vast  continent :  "  Africa  stands  alone  in 
a  geographical  view.  Penetrated  by  no  inland  seas  ;  nor 
overspread  with  extensive  lakes,  like  those  of  North 
America  ;  nor  having,  in  common  with  other  continents, 
rivers  running  from  the  centre  to  the  extremities  ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  its  regions  separated  from  each  other 
by  the  least  practicable  of  all  boundaries,  arid  deserts  of 
such  formidable  extent  as  to  threaten  all  those  who  trav- 
erse them  with  the  most  horrible  of  all  deaths,  that  arising 
from  thirst."  Sixteen  centuries  before  this,  the  Greek 
geographer  Ptolemy  had  partly  anticipated  that  nearly 
all  such  description  is  an  entire  mistake,  for  he  located 
the  sources  of  the  Nile  in  two  great  lakes  at  the  foot 
of  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon.  Aboulfeda,  the  Arab 
geographer  of  the  twelfth  century,  affirmed  the  existence 
of  a  great  central  lake  nine  and  a  half  degrees  in  length, 
from  whence  flowed  the  Nile.  The  Italian,  Pigafetta, 
as  also  Dufier,  reaffirmed  Ptolemy's  two  lakes.  Others 
made  more  or  less  valuable  conjectures  upon  mere  rumor, 
such  as  Mercator,  Vischer  and  DeWitt,  Ogilby,  and  Ar- 


LIVINGSTONE,    THE    MISSIONARY   EXPLORER.       441 

rowsmith.  But  at  the  close  of  the  last  century,  when  it 
was  finally  decided  to  insist  on  accuracy  and  accept  noth- 
ing conjectural,  the  leading  geographers  of  the  world 
fell  back  upon  the  report  we  have  given.  In  1856  a 
map  appeared  with  an  enormous  exaggeration  of  lake 
"Nyassa."  The  interest  awakened  led  to  the  exploration 
of  Burton  and  Speke  in  1857,  and  to  the  discovery  of 
lakes  Tanganyika  and  Ukerewe,  to  which  latter  Speke 
gave  the  name  of  Victoria  Nyanza,  or  "Victoria  Lake." 
To  this  vast  body  of  water,  thus  titled  with  British  roy- 
alty, Speke  made  another  tour  with  Grant  in  1861,  and 
discovered  that  it  emptied  to  the  north  in  the  direction 
of  the  Nile.  "  The  Nile  is  settled  !  "  was  his  famous 
telegram.  Mtesa  of  Uganda  was  visited,  the  centre  of 
interest  to  Mr.  Stanley's  second  African  journey  in 
1874-75. 

The  debt  of  Christian  Missions  and  of  African  civil- 
ization to  Dr.  Livingstone  is  not  yet  fully  appreciated. 
He  was  more  than  an  explorer ;  he  was  ever  the  mis- 
sionary as  well,  carrying  with  him  everywhere  among 
the  interior  tribes  the  influence  of  a  sterling  christian 
character,  and  seeking  continually  to  lead  the  way  for 
foreio^n  evano^elization  amono*  untold  millions  of  the  most 
deofraded  and  nesflected  souls.  He  was  bound  to  do  all 
that  lay  in  the  power  of  one  man  to  open  the  eyes  of 
christian  civilization  to  the  horrors  of  the  African  slave 
trade,  and  to  bring  influences  to  bear  for  its  total  sup- 
pression. Would  that  all,  who  have  explored  the  vast 
continent,  had  been  animated  by  the  same  spirit,  and 
had  scattered  abroad  the  same  favorable  impressions. 
In  1859  Dr.  Livingstone  discovered  Lake  Nyassa,  and 
in  his  later  tours  of  1868-71  several  smaller  bodies  of 
water  to  the  south  and  west  of  Tanganyika,  which  Cam- 
eron and  Stanley  have  proved  to  be  sources  of  the  Con- 
go. Thus  also,  probably,  Tanganyika  itself  is  drained. 
He  reported  an  interview  with  a  chief,  which  deserves 
to  be  remembered.  The  missionary  explorer  had  been 
faithfully  telling  the  native  prince  of  man's  accountabil- 
ity to  God,  and  of  the  coming  Judgment  Day.  "You 
startle  me,"  replied  the  chief;  "  these  words  make  all 


442  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

my  bones  to  shake  ;  I  have  no  more  strength  in  me.  But 
my  forefathers  were  living  at  the  time  yours  were,  and 
how  is  it  that  they  didn't  send  them  word  about  these 
terrible  things  sooner?"  Already  in  1864  Sir  Samuel 
Baker,  governor  of  the  newly  acquired  Egyptian  terri- 
tory bordering  now  on  Uganda,  had  discovered  Albert 
Nyanza,  and  shown  that  its  waters  receive  those  of  the 
Victoria  Nyanza,  before  the  actual  formation  of  the  Nile. 
When  Stanley  and  Long  visited  Mtesa,  they  found  a 
quite  no])ly  developed  specimen  of  manhood,  professing 
the  faith  of  Islam,  ruling  over  nearly  3,000,000  of  peo- 
ple in  Uganda  proper  and  the  tributary  provinces,  and 
evidently  belonging  to  a  race  superior  to  the  average 
negro  tribes.  Upon  Stanley's  explanation  of  the  su- 
periority of  Christianity  to  Islamism,  King  Mtesa  an- 
nounced his  readiness  to  adopt  the  better  religion  and 
to  give  every  encouragement  to  missionaries.  The  pub- 
lishing of  this  information  in  London  and  New  York,  in 
November,  1876,  stirred  the  whole  Christian  world  in 
behalf  of  the  evangelization  of  Central  Africa.  Thus 
has  the  great  dark  continent  been  opened  to  the  light, 
thanks  to  these  and  many  other  explorers  of  indomi- 
table courage  and  perseverance.  Since  Dr.  Nachtigal, 
in  1869-1874,  traversed  the  country  from  Tripoli  to  El 
Obeid  in  Kordofan,  but  few  great  links  in  the  chain  of 
African  exploration  remain.  Immense,  indeed,  is  the 
opportunity  thus  furnished  to  missionary  enterprise, 
and  imperative  the  call  of  duty  to  the  Christian  Church. 
The  extension  of  Egyptian  authority,  as'  well  as  the 
consolidation  of  the  power  of  the  Sultan  of  Zanzibar, 
though  accompanied  with  many  evils,  are  at  present 
being  overruled  for  the  more  rapid  development  of 
African  exploration,  and  the  more  effectual  opening 
of  the  doors  of  opportunity  for  evangelization. 

Great  Britain  deserves  scarceh^  any  more  credit  for 
her  share  in  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade,  than  does 
America  for  the  emancipation  proclamation,  or  Eussia 
for  the  liberation  of  the  serfs.  In  each  event  the  govern- 
ment was  driven  to  the  righteous  act  by  circumstances 
over  which   it   had   no    control.       Philanthropists   had 


AN   APPALLING   RECORD.  443 

agitated,  a  part  of  the  Christian  Church  had  prayed  and 
labored  for  the  result,  but  in  each  case  Providence  had 
to  signally  interpose  by  shutting  up  statesmanship  to  a 
necessity  which  could  not  be  avoided.  For  centuries 
the  slavery  evil  had  been  bad  enough  in  Africa,  but  the 
Mahometan  influence  made  it  still  worse ;  for,  while 
some  cruel  and  bloody  customs  were  abolished,  the  home 
demand  for  slaves  was  increased,  and  foreign  markets 
were  opened  for  large  exportations.  In  Persia  I  have 
met  many  of  them,  w^ho  had  been  brought  over  from 
Africa  by  Arab  traders.  At  Lingah  I  had  a  boat  crew 
of  six  slaves,  all  of  whom  claimed  to  be  Abyssinians,  and 
to  have  been  transported  by  the  way  of  Zanzibar.  And 
yet  still  worse  the  evil  became,  when  England,  Spain, 
Portugal  and  other  countries  united  their  power,  and 
wealth,  and  enterprise  to  make  Africa  the  great  slave 
mart  of  the  globe.  It  has  been  estimated  that  from 
western  Africa  alone  since  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
there  have  been  transported  across  the  Atlantic  more 
than  32,000,000  slaves,  and  that  even  up  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  present  century  the  British  West  India 
colonies  were  supplied  at  the  rate  of  57,000  a  year. 
These  appalling  numbers  must  be  much  more  than 
doubled  to  cover  the  losses  to  Africa  on  account  of 
the  slave  trade,  because  the  vast  majority  of  those  kid- 
napped or  made  prisoners  of  war  have  perished  upon  the 
forced  marches  to  the  coast,  or  under  their  inhuman 
treatment  at  sea.  It  is  seventy-three  years  since  the 
British  Parliament  decreed  the  end  of  this  iniquitous 
commerce,  and  forty-three  years  since  it  emancipated 
all  the  slaves  in  its  colonies  at  a  cost  of  $100,000,000. 
This  proved,  as  was  expected,  of  great  material  advan- 
tage to  the  British  West  Indies.  They  had  long  been 
manifestly  hastening  to  their  ruin  under  the  slavery 
system.  When  the  United  States  of  America  forever 
closed  their  ports  to  the  iniquitous  traffic,  and  redoubled 
their  efibrts  with  those  of  England  to  drive  it  from  the 
seas,  it  was  the  fond  hope  of  christian  philanthropists 
the  world  over  that  the  vast  evil  was  at  an  end.  But 
missionaries  and  explorers,  especially  upon  the  eastern 


444  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

coast,  were  learning  better.  It  was  found  that  an  annual 
exportation  of  at  least  20,000  slaves  continued,  and  as  a 
result,  after  ten  years  of  agitation,  the  repressive  treaty 
with  the  Sultan  of  Zanzibar  was  executed.  It  gives 
pleasure  to  note  that  this  last  act  of  British  atonement 
for  its  share  of  the  terrible  curse  occurred  a  year  before 
Livingstone's  death  in  1873.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  he 
heard  of  it,  and  that  thus  also  he  was  cheered  amid 
those  dark  closing  hours  in  the  lonely  Chitimbo  village 
hut.  Meanwhile^  however,  he  had  been  describing  what 
he  saw  of  the  slave  trade  in  the  interior,  and  which 
neither  Parliament  nor  Congress  can  suppress,  as  ''the 
open  sore  of  the  world,"  and  that  "to  exaggerate  its 
enormities  was  a  simple  impossibility."  The  great  task 
remains  for  Christian  Missions  and  their  accompanying 
influences  of  a  truly  enlightened  material  civilization. 

One  of  the  most  formidable  elements  of  the  struggle, 
which  is  before  the  Christian  Church  in  Africa,  is  the 
presence  of  so  much  outlawed  vice  all  around  the  coast, 
on  the'  part  of  representatives  from  England,  France, 
Portugal,  Holland,  America,  and  other  foreign  lands.  It 
is  quite  as  bad  as  either  the  native  Paganism,  or  the  im- 
ported Islamism.  The  disgrace  to  Christian  Civilization  is 
conspicuous  enough  in  Asiatic  colonies  and  treaty  ports, 
but  for  various  reasons  in  Africa  crime  against  both  God 
and  man  is  tinged  with  a  deeper  dye,  and  it  is  not  difficult 
for  the  Moslem  priesthood,  all  around  the  coast  at  least, 
to  point  to  many  who  are  their  own  best  evidences 
against  Christianity.  No  doubt  that  the  success  of 
Islam,  in  its  propagating  efforts  throughout  Africa,  must 
largely  be  placed  to  the  account  of  centuries  of  crime 
and  outrage  and  the  rum  traffic  on  the  part  of  people  from 
christian  lands.  The  presence  of  the  majority,  not  for 
legitimate  and  honest  trade,  Imt  to  purchase  slaves,  to 
sell  the  vilest  adulterations  for  drink,  to  make  every 
business  transaction  a  barefaced  robbery,  and  every  con- 
tact with  women  an  occasion  for  licentiousness,  accounts 
for  the  extraordinary  harmful  influence  of  the  foreign 
populations.  The  slave  trade,  the  ease  with  which 
Africans  can  be  cheated,  and  the  peculiar  strength  of 


AMERICAN    UNITED    PRESBYTERIAN.  445 

their  appetites,  have  drawn  the  scum  of  the  world  to 
their  continent,  and  vastly  increased  the  difficulties  of 
Christian  Missions.  The  belligerent  English  policy  of 
late  among  the  Zulus  and  in  the  Transvaal  has  added 
to  the  embarrassment,  already  greater  than  in  any  other 
quarter  of  the  heathen  world. 

Beginning  with  Egypt  now,  and  working  our  way  first 
around  the  coast  reoions  sroino-  west,  and  then  making: 
for  the  interior,  let  us  briefly  survey  the  mission  forces 
on  the  field,  Avhich  are  to-day  engaged  in  the  assault 
upon  this  great  continent  of  degradation,  crime  and 
woe.  Three  Protestant  societies  are  at  work  along  up 
the  valley  of  the  Xile.  The  Church  Mission  Society 
aids  the  two  English  schools  in  Cairo  and  Damietta, 
where  200  hoys  and  300  girls  are  gathered,  half  of  them 
being  ^Mahometans.  The  Scotch  Free  Church  supports 
one  missionary  to  the  Jews  in  Alexandria.  But  the 
principal  amount  of  the  evangelizing  labor  in  this 
country  has  now  been  carried  on  for  25  years  under  the 
auspices  of  the  American  United  Presbyterians.  Their 
mission  has  four  central  stations  —  Alexandria,  Cairo, 
Sinoris,  Osiout  —  and  35  out  stations,  with  8  ordained 
foreign  missionaries,  14  male  and  female  foreign  assis- 
tants, 98  native  helpers,  and  over  1,000  communicants, 
and  nearly  2,000  pupils  in  the  schools.  The  contribu- 
tions average  more  than  $6.00  a  member  annually,  and 
the  value  of  the  mission  property  is  upwards  of  160,000. 
I  was  delio-hted  to  see  the  inteilioent  zeal  with  which 
this  mission  is  being  carried  on,  in  the  face  of  many  ex- 
traordinary difficulties,  among  especially  the  300,000 
Copts,  or  christian  descendants  of  the  ancient  Egyptians. 
Successful  efforts  are  also  made  among  the  25,000 
Syrians  of  various  sects,  and  the  4,500,000  Moslems. 
I  shall  never  forget  the  delightful  conversation  I  had  in 
pantomime  with  a  converted  Copt  at  the  Bible  deposi- 
tory in  Cairo.  We  understood  each  other  in  but  two 
words,  Amen  and  Hallelujah  ;  l)ut  we  talked  neverthe- 
less a  great  deal  through  gesture  and  expression  about 
sin,  salvation  and  glory.  This  mission  has  been  very 
fortunate  in  its  Cairo  school.     It  won  the  favor  of  the 


& 


446  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

government  to  the  extent  of  receiving  such  a  valuable 
building  site  as  at  present,  that  the  late  Khedive  ex- 
changed it  for  another  well  located  near  the  Ezbekieh 
Square,  in  addition  to  $35,000  in  cash.  These  funds 
have  provided  them  with  admirable  dormitory,  chapel 
and  class  rooms.  Moreover,  in  the  matter  of  current 
expenses  they  are  very  much  helped  by  $5,000  a  year 
from  the  Maharajah  Dhuleep  Sing,  in  token  of  gratitude 
for  the  wife  he  found  in  their  Cairo  school  en  route  be- 
tween England  and  India.  He  receives  a  pension  of 
$150,000  a  year  from  the  British  government  in  lieu  of 
his  inherited  sovereignty  over  the  Punjaub  from  his 
father,  Runjeet  Sing,  the  Li^'-  of  Lahore.  Residing  in 
England,  as  he  prefers,  ne  finds  this  partly  Arab 
waif,  rescued  by  the  missionaries,  worth  to  him  this 
generous  contribution  at  least,  which  he  has  kept  up  for 
several  years.  Many  others  of  their  mission  school, 
though  bringing  no  such  wedding  fees  to  the  institution, 
are  proving  in  the  social  life  of  Africa,  Asia  and  Europe, 
in  other  ways  equally  remunerative  investments  for  the 
cause  of  Christ. 

Passing  now,  along  the  map,  Tripoli  with  one,  and 
Tunis  with  two  English  missions  among  the  Jews, 
Algeria,  with  its  one  Scotch  Presbyterian  missionary, 
and  Morocco,  with  its  single  Jewish  mission,  all  inhab- 
ited chiefly  by  Moslem  populations,  and  thus  far  in 
modern  times  left  by  Protestant  missions  almost 
eni^xioiy  CO  Roman  Catholic  efforts,  we  come  first  to  the 
Paris  Missionary  Society's  station  in  Senegal.  Their 
work,  however,  is  chiefly  in  the  south  among  the 
Basutos.  On  the  Gambia  the  Wesleyans  have  seven 
stations  and  nearly  seven  hundred  communicants.  Yery 
important  are  their  special  efforts  in  the  direction  of 
the  Mandingoes  and  the  Joloffs.  The  former  are  the 
most  numerous  of  the  West  African  tribes,  and  are 
active  proselyters  to  the  creed  of  Islam.  The  latter, 
who  surpass  all  the  others  in  bodily  development,  are 
Fetichists,  worshipping  trees,  serpents,  rams'  horns, 
stone,  paper  scraps,  and  other  objects  no  matter  how 
insignificant  and  degraded.     There  is  a  station  on  the 


OASIS    OF    SIERRA    LEONE.  447 

Pongas  maintained   by   christian  negroes   in  the  West 
Indies. 

Sierra  Leone  is  a  beautiful  moral  and  relig^ious  oasis 
upon  the  desert  of  West  Africa  populations.  This  rich 
and  fertile  peninfeula,  with  adjoining  tracts  of  land 
belonging  to  the  colony,  is  an  English  Protestant  coun- 
try. Ever  since  it  became  known  to  the  Portuguese  in 
the  fifteenth  century  it  has  been  a  great  mart  for  the  negro 
slave  trade,  until  near  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen- 
tury, under  the  labors  of  Wilberforce  and  the  authority 
of  the  British  Government,  Sierra  Leone  became  chiefly 
a  settlement  for  Africans  recaptured  from  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  slavers.  The  population  of  37,000  is  made 
up  of  more  than  a  hundred  distinct  tribes,  gathered 
from  all  parts  of  the  ^continent,  and,  though  taught 
English  for  general  intercourse,  speaking  as  many 
different  languages.  The  opportunity  is  unparalleled 
throughout  the  heathen  world  for  the  preparation  of  a 
most  widely  useful  native  ministry.  Thirty-two  thou- 
sand are  professed  Christians,  leaving  only  five  thousand 
Pagans  and  Mahometans.  As,  however,  the  colony  is 
a  great  entrepot  for  trade  with  the  interior,  many  more 
come  into  contact  with  the  influences  here  of  missionary 
enterprise  and  christian  civilization.  "  Many  of  the 
liberated  Africans,"  reports  the  English  Church  Mis- 
sionary Society,  "have  returned  to  their  own  native 
countries  —  returning,  not  as  they  came,  but  educated 
and  civilized,  whilst  some  of  them,  w^ith  missionary 
ardor  and  energy,  have  begun  to  spread  the  Gospel  in 
their  own  native  languages  many  hundred  miles  aAvay 
from  the  British  colony.  We  have  no  diflJculty  in  now 
explaining,"  it  is  suggestively  added,  "the  providential 
dealings,  once  so  dark,  which  frustrated  the  earlier  mis- 
sions to  West  Africa  and  concentrated  them  on  Sierra 
Leone."  This  Society  has  here  3  missionaries,  17 
native  clergymen,  and  about  14,000  adherents,  5,000 
being  communicants.  To  accomplish  this  important  be- 
ginning, 53  missionaries  of  this  society  here  laid  down 
their  lives  during  the  first  20  years  of  the  mission.  In 
1823,  of  five  missionaries,  who  stepped  forward  here  to 


448  CHEISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

the  front,  four  died  at  their  posts  in  six  months.  Yet 
within  two  years  there  r/ere  six  volunteers  for  their 
places,  of  whom  two  died  inside  of  four  nionths  after 
landing.  The  next  year  three  more  closed  up  the 
ranks,  of  whom  two  fell  within  six  months.  Such  is  the 
inspiring  heroism  of  modern  Christian  Missions.  The 
Wesley ans,  working  by  their  side  with  unabated  zeal 
and  almost  boundless  hopes,  have  12  missionaries,  50 
assistants,  and  some  15,000  adherents,  of  whom  5,723 
are  in  full  membership.  The  balance  of  the  christian 
population  is  divided  between  the  Methodist  Free 
Church  and  the  Lady  Huntingdon's  Connection. 

Liberia  claims  special  interest  as  the  only  portion  of 
the  continent  in  which  people  of  African  descent  have 
endeavored  to  found  a  civilizeil  State.  The  territory, 
located  a  few  degrees  north  of  the  Equator,  extends 
along  the  coast  over  500  miles,  and  inland  indefinitely. 
The  settlement  was  formed  in  1823  by  the  American 
Colonization  Society,  and  it  became  an  independent 
Republic  in  1848.  There  is  a  population  of  nearly 
30,000  of  Africo- American  birth  or  descent,  together 
with  1,500,000  of  the  pure  native  races.  The  capital 
is  at  Monrovia,  a  city  of  13,000  inhabitants.  The 
hopes  cherished  have  not  been  all  realized,  either  in  the 
direction  of  government  and  national  prosperity,  nor  in 
the  christianizinof  and  civilizino-  of  the  native  tribes. 
But  the  enterprise  is  still  deserving  of  a  wise  measure 
of  encouragement.  There  should  be  no  hasty  abandon- 
ment, because  the  early  expectations  were  too  sanguine, 
and  many  of  the  difficulties  were  unanticipated.  Time 
undoubtedly  will  remove  some  of  the  embarrassments 
there,  as  well  as  in  the  Southern  States  of  America, 
which  have  been  found  incident  to  the  earlier  years  of 
unlimited  negro  suffrage.  The  most  discouraging  pos- 
sible view  of  the  Liberian  experiment  must  acknowledge 
that  the  social  condition  is  a  vast  improvement  upon 
that  which  generally  prevails  in  Africa.  The  true 
policy  for  the  future  is  not  for  mission  and  colonization 
societies  to  indulge  there  in  lavish  appropriations,  nor 
to'  encourage   afresh   promiscuous    emigration,    but   to 


LIBERIlA.    TO    YORUBA. 


449 


seek  to  develop  a  missionary  spirit  among  the  multi- 
tudes of  christian  freedmen,  who  are  being  educated  in 
America.  Liberia  seems  to  be  waiting  in  the  providence 
of  God  for  their  opportunity.  If  the  newly  enlightened 
christian  forces  among  the  colored  populations  of  the 
South  can  only  be  enkindled  with  a  holy  zeal  for  the 
evangelization  of  Africa,  they  will  be  able  not  only  to 
supply  largely  the  laborers  and  means  required  through- 
out the  continent,  but  also  to  introduce  into  Liberia 
sufficient  intelligence  and  enterprise  and  christian  prin- 
ciple to  make  the  republic  realize  all  its  early  ambitions. 
It  is  encouraging  to  know  that  in  the  freedmen's  schools 
there  is  at  present  a  marked  growth  of  missionary  in- 
terest in  Africa.  The  colored  Baptists  of  Virginia  and 
South  Carolina  are  supporting  two  missionaries  in 
Liberia.  Hither  of  late  the  Fisk  University,  of  Ten- 
nessee, has  sent  some  laborers.  In  the  same  general 
direction  are  operating  the  American  Missionary  Asso- 
ciation and  the  Freedmen's  Missions  Aid  Society  of 
London,  the  former  of  which  sustains  twenty-six  schools 
among  the  freedmen  of  various  grades,  with  6,000 
pupils,  and  ten  missionaries  in  Africa.  The  Methodist 
and  Baptist  churches  of  Liberia  are  almost  independent 
of  the  mission  societies,  the  former  with  2,200,  and  the 
latter  2,000  communicants.  The  Episcopalian  mission 
has  encouraging  stations  at  Cape  Palmas  and  Ca valla, 
and  the  Presbyterians  at  ]\Ionrovia  and  Clay  Ashland. 
We  next  meet  upon  the  "  Gold  and  Slave  Coasts " 
missionaries  of  the  Wesleyan,  Basel,  North  German, 
Church  ^Missionary,  and  American  Southern  Baptist  So- 
cieties. The  Wesleyans  have  25  missionaries,  7,273 
communicants,  and  32,000  in  regular  attendance  upon 
public  worship.  The  Basel  Society  has  gathered  during 
42  years  some  fruit  even  across  the  line  in  Ashanti,  and 
supports  upon  the  Gold  Coast  20  stations  and  41  schools, 
with  4,000  adherents.  The  North  German  Society,  with 
a  heroic  record,  has  4  stations,  with  several  hundred  con- 
verts. The  Church  Missionary  Society  is  encouraged  in 
the  Yoruba  with  11  stations,  1,567  scholars,' and  5,994 
adherents.     The  history  of  their  Abeokuta  and  Ibadan 


450  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

missions  has  been  most  eventful,  which  I  would  that 
these  pages  gave  me  room  to  reproduce.  Missionary 
operations  in  these  regions  have  been  greatly  facilitated 
by  the  British  occupation  of  Lagos,  and  thus  finally  of 
the  entire  coast,  Liberia  and  a  French  claim  near  Assinie 
excepted,  from  the  Gambia  to  the  Niger.  Up  the  latter 
great  river,  whose  two  branches  reach  large  and  popu- 
lous sections  of  Negroland,  the  Church  Society  has  en- 
couraged a  very  successful  native  mission,  under  the 
superintendence  of  the  colored  Bishop  Crowther.  There 
are  11  native  missionaries  and  more  than  1,500  ad- 
herents, ^'an  earnest,"  as  Professor  Christlieb  says, 
*'  that  Africa  will  be  won  chiefly  by  Africans."  The 
society  has  a  little  steamer,  well  named,  "The  Henry 
Venn,"  for  the  use  of  this  mission.  It  lately  ascended 
the  Binue  branch  900  miles  from  the  sea,  reporting  many 
kings  and  chiefs  of  hitherto  unknown  countries  asking  for 
christian  teachers.  At  Old  Calal^ar  the  Scottish  United 
Presbyterians  have  5  stations  with  181  communicants ; 
upon  the  Cameroons  and  vicinity  the  English  Baptists; 
have  6  stations  with  150  in  communion ;  and  near  the 
Gaboon  and  Corisco  Bays  the  American  Presbyterians 
have  4  stations,  with  4  male  and  10  female  missionaries, 
and  331  converts  with  over  1,200  adherents. 

We  are  now  at  the  mouth  of  the  Congo,  or  Living- 
stone, as  Mr.  Stanley  has  endeavored  to  name  it.  Along 
up  this  river  since  early  in  1878,  fourteen  missionaries 
have  been  stationed  by  an  East  London  Society.  The 
English  Baptists  also  have  entered  earnestly  and  hope- 
fully upon  a  Congo  mission,  with  10  missionaries,  and 
stations  at  San  Salvador,  Sanda,  Isangila,  Mbw,  and  at 
Ibiu  on  northwest  bank  of  Stanley  Pool.  They  have  one 
steam-launch  upon  the  Lower  Congo,  and  are  construct- 
ing one  for  the  interior  work.  They  report  that  the  kings 
of  Congo  and  Matoka  are  giving  much  evidence  of  being 
thoroughly  converted  to  Christ.  This  would  seem  very 
providential,  as  ofiset  to  the  special  efibrts  being  made 
here  by  Rome.  The  Vatican  and  the  College  of  the 
Jesuits  are  putting  forth  the  most  strenuous  endeavors 
to  extinguish  Protestant  missions  in  Africa,  and  just 


NEW  ADVANCE  OF  AMERICAN  BOARD.      451 

now  particularly  in  the  Congo  kingdom,  which  has  been 
for  centuries  tributary  to  Catholic  Portugal.  Over  300 
years  ago  the  Jesuits,  with  a  Portuguese  army,  forced 
the  religion  of  the  Pope  upon  the  Congo  people,  es- 
tablishing a  college,  monastery  of  Capuchin  Friars, 
cathedral,  and  ten  smaller  churches  at  San  Salvador,  and 
distril)uting  throughout  the  kingdom  more  than  200  Jes- 
uits, Dominicans,  Capuchins,  and  Carmelites.  By  fines 
and  floggings,  even  less  merciful  than  the  sword  of  Islam, 
Rome  sought  to  convert  these  Africans.  But  when 
Portugal's  power  weakened,  the  people  of  Congo  re- 
l)elled  successfully  against  their  tyrants,  poisoned  their 
priests,  and  destroyed  all  their  ecclesiastical  buildings. 
No  wonder  Rome  is  being  thoroughly  aroused  by  Prot- 
estant eftbrts  in  the  same  direction,  and  that  the  Pope 
has  felt  called  upon  to  issue  a  special  Bull  regarding  this 
mission. 

Passinof  southward  from  the  Ans^ola  to  the  Beno^uela 

O  CO 

portion  of  the  Portuguese  territory,  Ave  come  to  the 
region  of  Biho,  250  miles  inland,  which  the  American 
Board  has  lately  selected  most  wisely  as  its  base  of 
operations  toAvard  the  interior  from  the  southwest. 
It  is  in  constant  caravan  communication  Avith  the  Upper 
Congo,  the  Kingdom  of  Ulunda,  Lakes  Cazembe,  Bang- 
Aveolo,  Tanganyika  and  Nyassa,  and  Avith  the  Zambezi 
and  Mozaml)ique.  "  Biheans,"  says  De  Serpa  Pinto, 
"  traverse  the  continent  from  the  Equator  to  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope.  I  haA^e  A^isited  many  tribes  Avho  had 
never  before  seen  a  Avhite  man,  but  I  never  met  one  Avho 
had  not  come  in  contact  Avith  the  inhal^itants  of  Bihc." 
St.  Paul,  the  Portuguese  capital,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Coanza  River,  has  12,000  inhabitants,  one  third  of  them 
white,  and  is  reached  monthly,  as  is  also  St.  Philip  de 
Benguela,  the  port  of  Bihe,  by  the  Royal  Mail  steamers 
from  Lisbon. 

We  come  noAv  to  the  vast  territory  of  South  Africa, 
extendinty  around  and  across  to  Delas^oa  Buy,  tAvo-thirds 
of  which  have  already  been  formally  annexed  to  Great 
Britain,  and  the  remaining  country,  AA^th  probably  in 
due  time  other  lands  in  the  direction  of  the  Zambezi 


452  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

and  the  great  lakes,  will  be  disposed  of  in  the  same 
manner.  Here  we  find  4  stations  in  Ovamboland  among 
the  Ovahereros,  occupied  by  the  Finnish  Lutherans, 
who  have  also  commenced  work  lately  among  the  Finns 
and  Laplanders  on  theEsthland  Islands  in  the  Gulf  of 
Bothnia.  The  Rhenish  mission  in  Hereroland  has  13 
stations,  with  2,500  converts.  It  has  translated  the 
New  Testament  and  Psalms  into  Otgiheroro  for  this 
interesting  giant  race  of  shepherds.  Leaving  the  black 
negroes  behind,  we  find  in  Namaqualand,  among  the 
yellow-brown  Hottentots,  6  stations  of  the  Rhenish  mis- 
sion, with  3,300  converts.  The  same  mission  has  in 
Cape  Colony  10  stations,  with  some  8,000  converts. 

For  so  long  a  time  there  has  been  so  large  an  ac- 
cumulation of  missionary  forces  from  the  Cape  to  the 
Transvaal,  that  now  this  may  be  called  a  Protestant 
Christian  territory.  There  are  13  societies  at  work 
throughout  South  Africa,  mostly  within  these  limits, 
with  35,000  communicants,  and  180,000  adherents.  I 
have  met  many  of  the  missionaries  laboring  here,  and  I 
never  heard  one  of  them  express  desire  to  have  been 
located  in  any  other  part  of  the  world's  mission  field. 
They  feel  that  they  are  providentially  among  races  of 
noble  constitution  and  large  capabilities,  from  among 
Avhom  the  most  efiicient  evangelizing  agencies  are  to  go 
forth  into  the  interior  of  the  great  continent,  which  is 
sure  to  fill  up  a  large  share  of  the  future  history  of  the 
globe.  The  climate  is  very  salubrious  for  those  of 
Caucasian  stock,  and  if,  as  is  very  probable,  under  the 
influence  of  the  new  life-guarding  civilization,  Africa's 
population  is  to  become  equal  to  that  of  the  globe,  and 
it  is  desirable  that  Anglo-Saxon  and  Teuton  judgment 
and  skill  should  long  superintend  the  mighty  task  of 
evangelization  here  assigned,  then  South  Africa  would 
seem  the  best  location  for  the  headquarters  of  a  ma- 
jority of  the  principal  missions  upon  the  continent.  Ere 
long  canals  and  railways  will  connect  w4th  the  great 
lakes  and  Soudan,  and  with  the  limits  of  navigation  upon 
the  Nile,  the  Niger,  the  Congo,  and  the  Zambezi. 

In  the  Cape  lands,  not  only  the  foreign  mission  societies, 


LONDON  AND  BERLIN  SOCIETIES  IN  SO.  AERICA.      453 

whose  stations  are  there  located,  but  also  the  various 
christian  churches,  which  have  there  grown  up  to  vigor 
and  influence,  are  now  partially,  at  least,  awake  to  the 
opportunity  and  "".uty  of  native  evangelization.  The 
Anglican  Church  joins  hands  with  the  Propagation 
Society,  and  they  nave  7  dioceses,  with  98  missionaries, 
24  of  whom  labor  exclusively  among  the  heathen,  and 
72  catechists  and  school-teachers.  The  Dutch  Re- 
formed Church,  the  oldest  in  the  land,  has,  Professor 
Christlieb  reports,  recently  taken  hold  here  of  heathen 
evangelization  at  the  instance  of  the  "  Synodal  Zendings- 
commissie  in  Zuid-xVfrica."  The  London  Missionary 
Society,  long  upon  the  ground,  and  continuing  its  com- 
mendable effort  to  withdraw  from  districts  evangelized 
and  mature  in  christian  organization,  and  spend  its  re- 
sources upon  the  heathen  tribes  l)eyond,  supports  15 
missionaries.  This  and  all  the  other  societies,  which 
are  working  upward  to  the  north  and  northeast,  have 
experienced  distressing  and  disturbing  influences  from 
the  late  wars.  They  report  that,  "  long-continued 
drought  had  desolated  the  land  in  many  districts,  and 
left  the  people  impoverished,  while  war  had  excited  and 
demoralized  some,  and  alarmed  and  scattered  others, 
and  left  the  country,  and  those  who  still  clung  to  their  old 
homes,  a  prey  to  the  lawless."  It  is  very  sad  that  the 
mission  cause  should  sufter  so  much,  because  British 
statesmanship  allowed  the  ^'  imperial  policy  "  to  become 
so  madly  rampant  in  South  Africa.  But  out  of  all  the 
serious  demoralization  the  work  undoubtedly  will  re- 
appear purified  and  the  more  hopeful.  The  chief 
strength  of  the  London  mission  is  now  given  to 
Bechuana-land,  north  of  the  Orange  and  Vaal  rivers. 
Here  in  Kuruman  is  located  the  ]Moffat  Listitute. 

Very  extensive  throughout  these  regions  are  the 
labors  of  the  Berlin  Missionary  Society.  It  has  42 
stations,  53  ordained  missionaries,  and  8,000  communi- 
cants. The  annual  appropriation  for  this  field  is  only 
$45,000.  It  is  very  hard  for  these  Germans  to  be 
laboring  so  economically  among  British  subjects,  and 
yet  to  be  deprived  of  their  mission  propertj^  at  Pniel, 


454  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

in  West  Griqualand.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  English 
justice  will  reassert  itself.  The  Paris  Missionary  So- 
ciety was  led  by  marked  providences  to  locate  among 
the  Basutos.  It  sustains  there  15  m*?sionaries,  and  has 
3,974  in  communion.  Its  schools  contain  3,130  scholars. 
Very  noteworthy  is  it  that  this  mission  has  been  success- 
ful in  keeping  the  curse  of  strong  drink  outside  of  a 
large  portion  of  the  Basuto  country.  Though  a  French 
society,  its  missionaries  do  not  seem  to  think  that  this 
great  evil  should  receive  any  indulgence.  The  Her- 
mannsburg  mission  has  had  49  stations  with  5,000  con- 
verts among  the  Kaffirs  and  Betjuans,  but  13  of  these 
stations  have  been  swept  away  by  the  Zulu  war.  The 
Moravians  have  14  central  stations  with  10,886  con- 
verts. The  Wesleyans  marshal  a  strong  force  of  laborers 
—  105  missionaries  and  assistant  missionaries,  with  15,- 
792  communicants,  and  74,747  attendants  upon  public 
worship,  including  church  members  and  scholars.  The 
American  Lutherans  have  a  station  with  good  buildings 
at  Muhlenberg.  The  United  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Scotland  has  had  five  of  its  six  stations  in  Kaffirland  des- 
troyed by  the  late  war,  at  a  loss  of  nearly  1000  converts, 
and  $25,000  in  mission  property.  The  Norwegian  mis- 
sion has  likewise  suffered,  but  is  now  re-estal:)lishing  its 
11  stations  among  the  Zulus.  The  American  Board's 
mission  to  Natal  and  Zululand  has  had  to  pass  repeat- 
edly through  the  fiery  ordeal.  It  has  seemed  strange 
that  its  10  stations  number  only  626  communicants,  after 
46  years  of  so  much  intelligent  and  faithful  missionary 
labor.  But  in  the  providence  of  God  the  reason  is 
now  appearing.  This  accumulation  of  experience  and 
christian  literature  and  educated  native  talent  is  being 
called  for  by  the  evangelizing  opportunity  in  Umzila's 
kingdom,  a  large  territory  to  the  south  of  the  Zambezi 
river. 

One  of  the  largest  and  most  vigorous  of  the  missions 
in  South  Africa  is  that  of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland. 
It  celebrated  its  semi-centennial  in  1871,  has  11  or- 
dained missionaries,  2  of  whom  are  Kaffirs,  8  European 
teachers,   and  56    evangelists,  artizans  and   assistants, 


INDUSTRIAL   SCHOOLS.  455 

with  2,000  communicants  connected  with  the  7  stations 
in  Kaffraria  and  Natal.  Its  two  evangelizing  and  in- 
dustrial institutions  at  Lovedale  and  Blythswood  de- 
serve special  attention.  Both  Sir  Bartle  Frere  and 
Mr.  Anthony  Trollope  testify  that  "  nothing  would  do 
more  to  prevent  future  Kaffir  wars  than  a  multiplication 
of  such  institutions."  The  aims  at  Lovedale,  as  stated 
by  Dr.  Stewart,  its  president,  are  to  train  preachers, 
teachers,  and  a  limited  number  in  various  arts  of 
civilized  life,  such  as  wagon-making,  blacksmithing, 
carpentering,  printing,  bookbinding,  telegraphy,  and 
general  agricultural  work,  as  well  as  to  provide  for 
others  a  liberal  education.  There  are  two  departments, 
male  and  female,  in  separate  buildings.  The  special 
aim  is  to  secure  the  conversion  of  all  who  are  attracted 
by  these  varied  advantages.  In  the  industrial  depart- 
ment, all,  after  trial,  are  indentured  for  five  years,  and 
paid  two  to  five  dollars  per  month  in  addition  to  board 
and  lodging,  a  drawback  of  which  is  kept  of  $50,  to  be 
received  at  the  end  of  the  apprenticeship.  There  are 
25  to  30  Europeans  among  the  500  students,  Avho  are 
also  Kaffirs,  Fingoes,  Hottentots,  Pondos,  Bechuanas, 
Basutos,  Zulus  and  Boers.  In  connection  there  is  a 
farm  of  2,800  acres.  The  yearly  expenses  are  about 
$35,000,  of  which  75  per  cent,  comes  from  fees,  earn- 
ings and  government  grants.  The  native  Fingoes  at 
Blythswood  in  the  Transkei  have  wisely  contributed 
$24,000  for  the  establishment  of  a  similar  institution. 
A  commencement  has  been  made  for  a  third  at  Living- 
stonia  on  Lake  Nyassa.  Wise  management,  it  seems 
to  me,  can  generally  secure  from  the  natives  the  funds 
needed  for  the  establishment  of  such  admirable  institu- 
tions. The  Dowager  Countess  of  Aberdeen  has  es- 
tablished a  memorial  mission  station  to  her  son  in 
Kafl^raria  by  investing  a  trust  fund  of  about  $47,000. 
It  is  an  example  well  deserving  the  consideration  of 
those  of  wealth,  who  would  erect  the  most  fittino:  monu- 
ments  to  deceased  relatives.  It  is  a  great  temporary 
embarrassment  to  the  cause  of  missions  in  Zululand, 
that,  upon  the  capture  of  Ketchawayo,  the  British  of- 


456  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ficials  arranged  that  no  white  man  shall  be  allowed  to 
hold  land  in  the  conquered  territory,  which  was  divided 
among  13  chiefs,  and  that  no  missionary  shall  be  toler- 
ated unless  asked  for  by  these  same  tribal  leaders. 
Public  opinion  in  England  will  soon  compel  a  change  in 
these  provisions,  as  also  the  abolition  of  the  "tribe 
system  "  of  land  holding. 

No  mission  field  of  the  world  has  during  the  last  few 
years  arrested  so  much  attention  as  that  of  East  Africa. 
To  the  same  regions  a  half  century  before  the  Arabs  of 
Oman  were  drawn,  after  having  thrown  off  the  Persian 
yoke.  The  remarkable  Said,  "Imam  of  Muscat,"  laid 
the  foundations  of  the  Zanzibar  Kingdom,  which  ex- 
tends inland  to  the  great  lakes,  and  whose  present  Sul- 
tan, Said  Burgash,  relieved  by  the  English  of  the 
$40,000  annual  tribute  to  Muscat,  seems  to  have  heart- 
ily entered  into  the  British  plans  for  the  suppression  of 
the  slave-trade.  To  the  north  in  Abyssinia  inefiectual 
efforts  had  been  made  by  the  Church  Missionary  Society 
(as  since  also  by  Crischono  Brethren,  London  Jewish 
Mission,  and  Swedish  Fosterland  Society)  at  reviving 
the  dead  church  (Gobat,  1830-33;  Krapf,  1839-42). 
The  latter,  becoming  interested  in  the  Somali  and  the 
Galla,  located,  as  a  basis  for  operations  among  them  and 
other  coast  tribes,  at  the  island  of  Mombasa,  150  miles 
north  of  Zanzibar.  Here  are  a  good  harbor  and  a  pop- 
ulation of  12,000  Arabs,  Negroes,  Beluchs  and  Indians. 
From  here  communication  could  be  had  along  the 
"  SuahTl"  or  coast  region,  and  somewhat  into  the  interior, 
through  the  Kishuahili,  a  kind  of  "lingua  franca,"  like 
the  Hindustani  in  India.  From  here  "little"  (  ?)  was  ac- 
complished for  a  generation  except  explorations  upon 
the  mainland,  the  acquiring  of  native  languages  and  the 
preparation  of  Scriptures  and  christian  books  in  Kis- 
uahili,  Kinika,  Kinyassa,  Kikamba,  Kipokomo,  Kikiau, 
Kicralla  and  Kikuafi.  Nothins:  could  be  more  touchincr 
than  the  many  years'  labors  at  this  work  of  the  blind 
missionary  Rebmann,  much  of  the  time  all  alone  save 
with  a  few  native  converts.  While  Englishmen  remem- 
ber Carey,  and  Americans  Judson,  they  should  also  re- 
member this  German  and  his  colaborer  Krapf. 


INVITATION    OF   FREE    CHURCH    OF    SCOTLAND.      457 

The  providence  of  God,  which,  for  so  long,  had  been 
so  dark  and  mysterious  in  East  Africa,  was  now  ready 
to  sweep  away  the  obstacles,  and  to  open  vast  opportu- 
nities for  utilizing  the  missionary  experience  and  mate- 
rials, which  had  been  accumulating  upon  the  coast  and 
in  the  South  colonies.  The  lake  regions  were  discov- 
ered, and  the  foreign  slave-trade  abolished.  Plain  as 
the  sun  at  noon-day,  there  is  a  God  in  history.  Pre- 
viously in  1859,  Dr.  Livingstone  had  summoned  the 
Universities  Mission  (Oxford  and  Cambridge)  to  Central 
Africa,  but  its  disasters  were  a  part  of  the  maturing 
plan  of  God. 

Morning  breaks.  At  Kongoni,  the  southern  mouth 
of  the  Zambezi,  the  Scottish  Free  Church  Mission,  lead- 
ing the  way  for  the  Reformed,  United,  and  Established 
Churches  of  that  land,  and  "inviting  all  Christendom  to 
help  and  share  in  the  glorious  enterprise,"  has  launched 
its  own  steamer,  the  "  Ilala,"  for  the  "  Livingstonia  Ex- 
pedition to  Lake  Nyassa."  The  brave  crusaders  turn  up 
the  Shire  and  encounter  the  Murchison  cataracts.  But 
the  "Ilala"  is  taken  to  pieces,  and  700  natives  carry  it 
36  miles  above,  not  one  of  them  committing  a  theft. 
October  12th  they  enter- the  great  lake,  reading  at  wor- 
ship the  Hundredth  Psalm.  Around  upon  the  700  miles 
of  coast  line  several  stations  have  been  located,  "  raising," 
as  Professor  Christlieb  truly  observes,  "to  the  great 
friend  of  Africa  the  most  beautiful  of  monuments  - —  a 
livmg  one  —  a  garden  of  God  in  the  midst  of  the  wilder- 
ness." A  chief,  named  Marenga,  has  been  found  upon 
the  west  side  especially  friendly.  The  Scripture  and 
songs  in  the  Chinyanja  language,  printed  at  Lovedale 
by  the  Kaffirs,  prove  just  what  was  wanted.  Another 
steamer  has  been  placed  below  the  cataracts,  around 
which  a  road  has  been  constructed.  From  the  head  of 
the  lake  a  road  has  been  surveyed  to  the  foot  of 
Tanganyika,  210  miles  distant,  the  report  of  which, 
made  by  the  mission's  engineer,  it  was  xiay  privilege  to 
hear  in  London  before  the  Geographical  Society. 

The  expedition  of  the  London  Missionary  Society 
struck  directly  across  from  Zanzibar,  hy  way  of  Ugogo 


458  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

and  Unyanyembe,  reaching  Ujiji  upon  Tanganyika, 
August,  1878.  Shortly  afterward  one  of  the  three  died, 
then  also  the  fourth  of  the  party,  seven  days  after  his 
subsequent  arrival,  and  in  July  following  Dr.  Mullens, 
the  Foreign  Secretary,  leading  a  little  band  of  reinforce- 
ments, fell  en  route  at  Chakombe.  Yet,  despite  these 
serious  losses,  and  the  opposition  of  the  Arabs  and 
Waswahili,  and  the  seizure  of  stores  by  Mirambo,  the 
king  of  Urambo,  the  brave  mission  has  pressed  on,  the 
ranks  have  filled  up,  and  every  encouragement  has 
seemed  to  attend  since  the  following  November  2d, 
when  throughout  Scotland  united  prayer  was  made  that 
God  would  come  to  the  deliverance  of  the  Central 
Africa  Tanganyika  Mission.  Favorable  im^pressions 
have  been  made  upon  the  natives ;  stations  have  been 
located  at  Ujiji,  in  Uguha,  west  of  the  lake,  and  at  the 
Urambo  capital  even,  where  the  royal  robber  of  the 
mission  has  refunded  and  become  a  valuable  friend. 
Indeed,  he  has  commenced  to  set  the  example  before  his 
people  of  keeping  Sunday  To  this  mission,  whose  con- 
ditions are  now  so  favorable,  Mr.  Arthington,  of  Leeds, 
gave  $25,000  at  near  its  commencement,  and  has  lately 
contributed  $15,000  more.  He  has  similarly  befriended 
the  English  Baptist  Mission,  into  the  interior  by  way  of 
Congo,  and  has  offered  American  Baptists  $35,000  for 
like  enterprise  in  the  vicinity  of  Lake  Chad :  Soudan. 
Mr.  Hore,  of  Ujiji,  in  his  touring  with  the  mission  vessel, 
the  Calabash,  has  found,  with  considerable  certainty, 
that  the  Lukus^a  is  the  outlet  of  Tano-anvika,  which  is 
probably  identical  with  the  Lualaba  and  the  Congo. 
May  these  minglings  of  waters  and  benefactions  betoken 
the  speedy  and  fraternal  union  of  these  and  many  other 
missions  throughout  the  centre  of  the  great  continent. 

Making  only  passing  mention  of  the  University 
Mission  stations,  under  Bishop  Steere,  at  Magila  and 
Masasi,  and  of  its  important  schools  in  Zanzibar,  as  also 
of  the  strengthening  mission  of  the  United  Methodist 
Free  Church,  I  hasten  to  enumerate  one  of  the  most 
enterprising  of  the  interior  African  missions,  that  of  the 
Church  Society  to  the  shores  of  Victoria  Nyanza,  with 


ON  VICTORIA  NYANZA.  459 

the  purpose  of  soon  locating  upon  the  Albert  Nyanza,  and 
of  ultimately  joining  hands  with  the  Binue  or  Eastern 
Niger  Mission.  Truly  it  is  a  most  magnificent  pro- 
gramme for  evangelization,  and  the  whole  Church  of 
Christ  is  to  be  cono^ratulated '  in  that  the  initiative  has 
fallen  into  the  present  hands.  A  society,  that  could 
voluntarily  relinquish  the  Madagascar  Mission  in  def- 
erence to  the  interests  of  a  dissenting  society,  is  just 
the  one  to  go  ahead  with  this  which  is  one  of  the 
grandest  enterprises  of  modern  evangelization,  for  all 
concerned  may  rest  assured  that  the  parent  spirit  of  this 
field  will  be  the  Divine  Master's  own  spirit  of  peace  and 
conciliation. 

Immediately  upon  publication  of  Mr.  Stanley's  letter, 
informing  of  the  Uganda  king  Mtesa's  favorable  dispo- 
sition toward  Christianity,  $25,000  were  offered  the 
Church  Missionary  Society  toward  the  founding  of  a 
mission  upon  Victoria  Nyanza,  to  which  another  promise 
of  $25,000  more  was  soon  added.  It  was  a  difficult 
and  perilous  undertaking,  to  locate  stations  800  miles 
from  their  base.  But  a  few  months  after,  and  seven 
picked  men  started  inland  from  Zanzibar,  one  of  them 
to  establish  an  intermediate  station  at  Mpwapwa  in  the 
Usugara  mountains.  Two  of  them  were  compelled  to 
return,  but  the  others,  after  a  march  of  six  months, 
reached  Kagei,  on  the  southern  shore  of  the  lake,  early 
in  1877.  Soon  there  the  physician  of  the  little  party 
died,  but  on  two  of  them  pressed  across  the  great  water 
to  Ruliaga,  the  capital  of  Uganda.  They  were  wel- 
comed by  Mtesa,  the  king  of  this  healthy,  fertile,  popu- 
lous and  prosperous  country.  Everything  seemed 
encouraging  now  for  the  establishment  of  the  mission. 
Stores  were  brought  over  in  the  larger  boat,  built  for  the 
purpose  by  the  remaining  member  of  the  party  at 
Ukerewe.  Explorations  were  made.  Many  christian 
services  were  held  in  the  palace.  Much  religious  in- 
struction was  given.  The  New  Testament,  which  had 
been  translated  into  Suaheli  by  Bishop  Steare  at  Zanzi- 
bar, was  found  to  be  understood.  But  further  trials 
were  needed  in  the  judgment  of  an  unerring  Providence. 


460  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Two  of  the  three  remaining  pioneers  were  killed  by  a 
mob,  which  had  pursued  to  their  premises  an  Arab 
who  had  fled  to  them  for  protection.  Then  French 
Jesuits  came  to  poison  the  mind  of  the  king  against 
Protestant  missions.  But  reinforcements  have  been  ar- 
riving both  from  Zanzibar  and  by  way  of  the  Nile,  and, 
depending  more  upon  the  King  of  all  kings,  the  heroic 
mission  is  going  forward  from  victory  to  victory,  deter- 
mined to  extend  its  stations  of  the  Cross  like  a  chain 
across  the  entire  continent  from  the  Indian  to  the  At- 
lantic Ocean. 

Across  the  Mozambique  Channel  is  the  large  island  of 
Madagascar,  with  a  population  of  2,^00,000,  where  the 
history  of  Protestant  missions  since  1820  has  caused  the 
wonder  and  gratitude  of  the  whole  Christian  world. 
Jesuits  had  l:>een  there  since  the  17th  century,  but  had 
accomplished  little.  Most  of  the  evangelical  labor, 
which  has  been  so  extraordinarily  blessed,  has  been 
under  the  auspices  of  the  London  INlissionary  Society, 
which  numbers  here  at  present__26  missionaries,  3,967 
native  preachers,  70,125  church  members,  and  253,182 
adherents.  There  are  882  schools  with  48,15,0  scEolars. 
The  Friends'  Mission  has  85  schools  with  2,860  in  atten- 
dance, and  the  Norwegian  Lutheran  Society  has  20,000 
adherents.  The  Propagation  Society  sustains  a  Bishop 
and  12  missionaries  against  the  prevailing  judgment  of  the 
Christian  Church,  including  doubtless  a  majority  of  the 
Anglican  Establishment.  After  sixteen  years  of  planting 
and  training  came  twenty-five  years  of  l)loody  persecution 
at  the  hands  of  the  maddened  heathen  queen.  Yet  since 
1862  the  Court  has  not  only  been  tolerant  but  also  in 
active  S3aiipathy  with  the  mission  w^ork.  Slavery  is  being 
abolished.  Cruel  customs  and  laws  have  yielded  to 
Christian  influences.  In  the  last  war  the  Prime  Minis- 
ter thus  instructed  the  officers:  "Now,  remember  that 
you  are  not  to  do  as  you  once  did.  You  are  going  to 
fight  with  the  Queen's  subjects,  and  there  must  be  no 
life  taken  except  there  is  armed  resistance."  The  last 
report  from  the  laborers  in  this  field  is  very  full  and 
frank,    and,  notwithstanding  numerous  and  grave  em- 


TRIUMPHS    OF    THE    CROSS    IN   MADAGASCAR.  461 

barrassments,  the  directors  of  the  Society  truthfully  say, 
that  "  the  thoughtful  cannot  fail  to  be  impressed  with 
the  marvellous  revolution,  affecting  all  classes  of  native 
society,  in  every  aspect  of  human  life,  which  has  been 
wrought  in  the  island,  directly  and  indirectly,  by  means 
of  christian  missionaries,  wielding,  as  their  chief  weapon, 
"the  Sword  of  the  Spirit  — the  Word  of  God." 

Among  the  350,000  population  of  Mauritius,  and  the 
14,000  of  its  dependencies,  including  the  Seychelles 
Islands,  the  C.  M.  S.  has  6  missionaries  and  1,400  ad- 
herents;  and  the  S.  P.  G.  has  4  missionaries  and  1,000 
adherents.  The  latter  society  has  3  missionaries  with 
137  communicants  upon  the  island  of  St.  Helena. 

Thus,  at  length  and  yet  briefly,  we  have  surveyed  the 
great  mission  field  of  Africa  and  its  neighborhood. 
The  need  of  a  good  map  will  be  apparent  to  every 
reader.  Indeed,  every  church  should  provide  itself  with 
a  full  set  of  the  best  procurable,  covering  the  whole 
mission  world.  Nor  should  it  confine  itself  to  the  labors 
only  of  those  in  its  own  communion.  All  branches  of 
the  Church,  as  well  as  all  mission  societies  need  to 
become  better  acquainted  with  each  other.  There  is 
much  more  real  union  among  all  the  followers  of  our 
Lord  than  appears,  or  even  is  known.  And  every 
denomination  has  interest  and  instruction  in  its  evange- 
lizing history  for  all  others,  which  no  sectarianism 
should  prevent  from  being  acquired.  Neither  a  Bishop 
nor  a  Baptistery,  neither  a  Presbytery  nor  a  Congrega- 
tional form  of  government,  nor  any  other  corps  badge 
of  Emmanuel's  great  army  indicate  Avhere  are  to  be 
found  all  the  heroism  and  wisdom  and  valuable  prece- 
dents. In  Madagascar,  Kaffraria,  Yoruba,  the  Lake 
regions  and  elsewhere,  we  have  seen  plainly  illustrated 
the  normal  leading  relation  of  evangelization  to  civiliza- 
tion. The  messenger  of  the  Gospel  goes  first  with  the 
simple  story  of  Jesus,  and  then  follow  the  social  virtues, 
the  school-house,  the  plough,  freedom,  and  home.  It 
has  been  evident  that  some  of  the  principles  and 
methods  of  labor  amono:  warlike  and  slave-tradino^ 
populations  must  be  different  from  those,  with  which  we 


462  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

have  become  familiar  in  India  and  China.  Some  of 
these  are  well  presented  in  the  instructions  lately  given 
to  the  interior  African  pioneers  by  the  Scottish  Free 
Church  and  A.  B.  C.  F.  M.  Societies.  We  have  felt 
unreconciled  at  the  denominational  controversy  rising  at 
many  points  ;  but  it  is  inevitable,  and  He,  whose  anxie- 
ties are  far  greater  than  ours  for  the  Cause,  knows  all 
about  it,  and  is  able  here  also  to  overrule  for  good. 
The  question  of  the  true  relations  of  the  missions  to  the 
secular  power  has  been  repeatedly  presented.  Provi- 
dence evidently  has  often  rebuked  both  too  great  fear 
of  such  power,  and  also  too  great  reliance  upon  its 
support.  The  examples  of  Christ  and  of  the  Apostle 
Paul  in  this  respect  need  to  be  carefully  studied.  In 
no  part  of  the  world  does  the  missionary  need  more 
knowledge  of  human  nature  and  more  tact  than  in 
Africa.  He  must  first  win  confidence.  The  natives 
must  believe  in  him,  before  they  will  give  any  real  atten- 
tion to  his  message.  A  life  full  of  sympathy,  politeness, 
and  patience  needs  to  be  laid  upon  the  altar.  Says  a 
missionary :  "  I  have  found  that  human  kindness  is 
a  key  which  unlocks  every  door."  The  heart  of  Chris- 
tendom is  turning  toward  Africa.  It  will  open  the 
continent.  The  prejudice  of  centuries  of  wrong  is 
giving  way,  and  this  great  land  is  sure  to  be  one  of  the 
brightest  jewels  in  our  Saviour's  crown. 


LANGUAGE    WHICH   CANNOT   BE    WRITTEN.  463 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

GREEK  AND  CATHOLIC  EUEOPE. 

jHE  limits  of  this  volume  will  allow  only 
the  briefest  possible  survey  of  what  re- 
mains of  the  mission  held  along  our  world 
tour  before  crossing  the  Atlantic.  What 
it  has  been  our  privilege  to  observe  at 
many  points  throughout  Slavic,  Latin,  and 
Teutonic  Europe,  bearing  upon  the  politi- 
cal, social,  and  religious  questions  of  the  globe,  tempt 
us  to  forget  that  these  pages  must  draw  to  a  close,  as 
also  that  whole  libraries  have  been  written,  and  the 
daily  press  is  teeming  with  the  information,  which,  how- 
ever, seems  multiplied  indefinitelj-  to  the  eyes  and  ears 
of  the  thoughtful  traveller.  One  may  read  scores  of 
descriptions  of  the  beauty  of  the  site  of  Constantinople, 
but  they  all  seem  very  tame  when  he  has  gazed 
upon  the  splendid  reality  from  the  Bosporus  entrance 
to  the  Sea  of  Marmora.  The  cathedral  and  palace  of  St. 
Petersburg,  the  Parthenon  and  Acropohs  of  Athens,  the 
Bay  of  Naples  fr-om  the  crater  of  Vesuvius,  the  art  col- 
lections of,  Eome,  the  Swiss  and  Tyrol  Alps,  and  other 
centres  of  world  interest  between  the  Mediterranean  and 
the  Baltic,  —  all  have  another  language  for  those  who 
go  to  listen  for  themselves,  more  sublime  in  its  elo- 
quence, more  tender  in  its  pathos.  Likewise  with  the 
political,  social,  and  religious  constructions  both  of  God 
and  man  in  Europe  ;  they  cannot  be  described  as  they 
can  be  seen.  Especially  to  Americans  they  are  so  dif- 
ferent from  the  familiar  scenes  of  this  new  world,  that 
they  need  to  be  visited  before  they  can  be  thoroughly 
appreciated  in  their  merits  and  demerits,  their  glory  and 


464  CHKISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

infamy,  their  helps  and  their  hindrances  to  the  progress 
of  mankind. 

The  religious  situation  of  especially  Greek  and  Catho- 
lic Europe  is  largely  political.  With  a  majority  of  the 
populations  religion  seems  to  be  quite  as  much  a 
matter  of  relation  to  government  and  society  as  of  rela- 
tion to  God.  Church  and  State  are  understood  to 
be  indissoluble  parts  of  one  whole,  and  to  the  vast 
majority  the  American  theory  is  utterly  incomprehensi- 
ble. The  idea  of  government  which  prevails  is  the 
paternal,  not  the  representative,  and  the  czar  or  king, 
emperor  or  ruling  power  of  whatever  name,  is  supposed 
to  provide  for  the  safety  of  the  soul  as  well  as  of  the 
body  amid  the  dangers  seen  and  unseen.  Attendance 
upon  church  service,  deference  to  the  priesthood,  and 
the  observance  of  fasts  and  feasts,  are  expressions  of 
loyalty  to  the  civil  authority  almost  as  much,  if  not  so 
exclusively,  as  the  corresponding  acts  of  the  Shintoists 
of  Japan  and  the  Confucianists  of  China.  The  history 
of  the  various  nations,  except  as  it  antedates  the 
close  of  the  third  century,  is  so  interwoven  with  ques- 
tions of  doctrine  and  ritual,  that  no  wonder  the  majority 
of  their  populations  to-day  think  of  the  Church  as  only 
the  right  arm  of  the  State.  The  Latin  hierarchy  has 
strenuously  sought  to  make  the  State  the  subordinate 
part  of  this  indissoluble  union  ;  yet,  despite  the  tempo- 
rary success  of  the  middle  ages,  the  effort  has  been  a 
failure.  No  corresponding  endeavor  has  been  made  by 
the  ecclesiastical  authority  of  the  Greek  Orthodox 
Church.  Largely  the  aversion  felt  in  the  Eastern 
against  the  Western  communion  has  been  on  account  of 
the  exaggerated  political  pretensions  of  the  Vatican. 
The  separation  between  the  two  great  branches  was  not 
simply  a  radical  difference  of  religious  convictions  over 
the  word  "  filioque  "  ;  it  was  chiefly  a  resultant  of  politi- 
cal alienations,  of  the  profound  antipathies  between  two 
civilizations. 

As,  from  the  days  of  Constantine,  Christianity  has 
been  made  most  to  suffer  because  of  its  secularization, 
its  servility  to  political  pp^ver   the  signs  of  the  times, 


SEPARATION  OF  CHURCH  AND  STATE.      465 

which  evangelical  foith  in  America  and  largely  in  Great 
Britain  is  specially  anxious  to  observe,  are  those  of  the 
complete  separation  of  church  and  state  throughout 
Christendom.  There  are  numerous  indications  that  this 
is  taking  place  in  Greek  and  Catholic  Europe.  In 
Russia  up  to  the  last  century  a  quarter  of  the  property 
of  the  realm  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  church. 
When  the  state  confiscated  the  lands  and  serfs,  a  power- 
ful blow  was  given  to  the  feeling  of  interdependence. 
Similiar  secularizations  of  church  property  in  Italy  and 
France,  as  well  as  the  breaking  by  Austria  and  Spain 
of  their  concordats  with  Rome,  are  evidently  preparing 
the  way  for  the  ultimate  separation  of  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  administrations.  The  rapid  increase  of 
the  numl:)er  of  dissenting  bodies  and  of  their  adherents 
is  contributing  to  the  same  result.  The  non-conformists 
of  Russia  number  to-day  ten  millions.  Dissent  is  rife 
also  in  the  other  branches  of  the  Eastern  Orthodox 
Church  Confederation,  whose  Patriarchs  reside  in 
Constantinople,  Jerusalem,  Antioch  and  Alexandria. 
Sadowa  so  far  opened  the  eyes  of  the  Austrian  emperor, 
that  he  saw  Protestantism  was  respectable  enough  for 
one  of  its  leaders  to  become  his  prime  minister.  The 
old  Waldensian  fire  is  kindling  throughout  Italy,  and  a 
resurrection  of  the  spirits  of  the  Huguenots  is  appear- 
ing all  over  France.  The  power  which  rules  the  French 
Republic  to-day  is  strongly  anti-clerical.  If  it  continues, 
Ultramontanism  itself  will  be  quite  ready  for  disestab- 
lishment. Inside  of  clerical  ranks  party  spirit  is  running 
high,  as  between  the  Black  Clergy  and  the  White 
Clergy  of  Russia,  and  the  Gallicans  and  Ultramontanes 
of  the  Latin  communion,  and  the  weaker  sides  will 
incline  to  any  punishment  that  may  be  inflicted  upon  the 
others.  Statesmen  are  restless  under  their  multiplied 
labors  incident  to  the  advance  of  civilization  and  general 
enlightenment,  and  are  inquiring  if  they  cannot  with 
safety  throw  off  entirely  the  church  responsibility.  The 
power  and  facilities  of  the  press  are  being  recognized 
as  a  substitute  for  the  former  clerical  communication 
with   the   people,    and   control   of  their   actions.     The 


466  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

enormous  expense  of  modern  standing  armies,  and  the 
frightful  del)ts  they  have  created,  are  forcing  the  ques- 
tion of  ridding  the  pubKc  treasury  of  church  burdens. 
And  along  with  the  increase  of  general  intelligence, 
there  is  a  growing  appreciation  of  the  personal  character 
of  true  religion,  and  that  the  greatest  favor  it  can 
receive  from  the  secular  power  is  to  be  let  alone. 

As  this  drift  toward  disestablishment  in  both  Greek 
and  Catholic  Europe  continues,  much  more  doubtless  will 
be  seen  of  what  is  already  very  noticeable  particularly  in 
Latin  countries,  namely  the  adoption  of  the  most  plainly 
successful  Protestant  methods  as  the  only  substitute  at 
hand  for  the  waning  political  support,  upon  which  for 
so  long  there  has  been  perhaps  chief  reliance.  For  ex- 
ample we  see  in  Rome  to-day  the  church  party  opening 
numerous  schools,  issuing  great  quantities  of  cheap 
literature,  establishing  soup  kitchens,  and  seeking  in 
various  other  ways  to  cultivate  the  intelligence  of  the 
people  and  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  poor  and 
the  suffering.  I  have  noted  many  indications  of  this 
same  transfer  of  reliance  for  the  future  to  Protestant 
methods,  in  different  parts  of  Italy,  France,  Greece, 
and  even  Russia.  Pius  IX.  made  a  prisoner  of  himself 
in  the  Vatican,  and  simply  went  into  loud  lamentations 
over  the  loss  of  the  temporal  power.  Leo  XIII.  is  in  part 
pursuing  a  different  policy.  So  are  the  Patriarchs  of 
the  East,  and  the  Holy  Synod  of  the  North.  They  and 
their  myriad  followers  are  casting  about  more  or  less 
timidly  for  something  to  take  the  place  of  the  state. 
They  would  not,  if  they  could  help  it,  pattern  after 
Protestants.  But  it  is  plainly  becoming  their  only 
alternative ;  and  so  education  is  to  be  encouraged,  the 
press  is  to  be  utilized,  and  the  destitute  are  to  receive 
attention.  Would  that  the  Divine  Master's  spirit  could 
accompany  this  forced  reversal  of  the  policy  of  centuries. 
But  it  is  to  be  ffeared  that  generally  there  will  be  allowed 
only  the  letter  which  killeth.  Method  cannot  sanctify 
unholy  principles.  Both  the  Greek  and  the  Latin 
churches  will  be  the  same,  even  though  they  should 
completely  array  themselves  in  Evangelical  attire.    And 


THE    DANGERS    OF   A   NEW   ISLAM.  467 

yet  not  the  same,  for  their  power  for  evil  will  be  in- 
creased. Protestantism  will  find  its  great  mission  only 
rendered  the  more  important.  Perhaps  it  will  itself  be 
made  a  more  fitting  instrumentality  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
among  the  hearts  of  men,  by  being  driven  through  the 
new  competition  away  in  a  measure  from  the  means  and 
methods,  which  have  proved  effective,  and  yet  therefore 
have  tempted  too  much  of  our  reliance  in  evangehzation, 
to  Him,  who  alone  is  the  Head  over  all  to  the  Church, 
its  light,  its  pattern,  and  its  power. 

The  call  of  God  for  evano:elical  mission  labor  amons^ 
the  Greek  and  Catholic  church  populations  is  very  dis- 
tinct, and  for  many  other  reasons  is  growing  more  and 
more  imperative.  There  are  those  who  think  that 
foreign  missions  should  confine  themselves  to  pagan 
and  anti-christion  nations,  leaving  the  corrupted  forms 
of  Christianity  among  the  nations  where  they  prevail  to 
work  out  gradually  their  own  purification  and  elevation. 
But  these  forget  the  great  lesson  of  Mahometanism, 
which  should  be  sufficient  for  all  time.  The  great 
majority  of  the  various  ])ranches  of  the  Christian  Church 
had  become  similarly  corrupted  to  those  of  the  Greek 
and  Catholic  faiths  of  to-day.  Their  worship  was  chiefly 
a  mere  refinement  upon  the  prevailing  idolatries  around 
them.  Instead  of  wood,  and  stone,  and  plaster  idols, 
devotions  were  paid  to  saints,  pictures  and  relics.  It 
was  the  opportunity  for  that  tremendous  reaction,  which 
rallied  around  the  monotheistic  and  iconoclastic  teachings 
of  Mahomet.  Had  not  the  Church  l^ecome  so  paganized, 
Islam  propably  would  never  have  appeared.  And  if 
to-day  the  vast  populations  in  Europe  and  elsewhere 
under  the  domination  of  the  .Greek  -and  Catholic 
churches  are  neglected  by  evangelical  missions,  the 
prospect  is,  not  of  reformation,  but  of  some  correspond- 
ing movement  of  popular  indignation,  monotheistic, 
deistic  or  atheistic,  sweeping  over  the  nations  like  a 
conflagration.  The  new  Islam  might  not  unsheath  the 
sword,  but  would  exert  influences  still  more  harmful  to 
the  progress  of  the  race. 

I  do  not  exaggerate  the  corruptions  and  perils  of  the 


468  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Greek  and  Catholic  populations  of  Europe.  The  former 
is  quite  as  much  in  religious  decay  as  the  latter,  which 
in  turn  is  very  much  more  degraded  than  the  Catholic 
population  of  the  United  States  of  America.  Dr.  F.  F. 
Ellinwood,  of  the  Presb}1:erian  Board,  well  observes  in 
his  valuable  collection  of  miscellaneous  papers  on  mis- 
sions, entitled  "The  Great  Conquest,"  —  ''Those  who 
question  the  policy  of  carrying  on  missions  in  Catholic 
countries,  are  apt  to  overlook  the  important  fact,  that 
the  Pa})al  system,  Avhere  it  is  possessed  of  full  power 
and  influence,  is  quite  diflerent  from  the  Catholicism 
which  exists  under  the  restraints  of  our  American  in- 
stitutions. Here  Papists  are  in  the  minority,  and  are 
put  upon  their  good  1)ehavior ;  and  through  the  schools 
and  the  press  a  great  amount  of  light  penetrates  the 
church,  in  spite  of  all  efforts  to  exclude  it.  The  hie- 
rarchy here  does  many  things,  partly  from  policy  and 
partly  from  necessity,  which  would  never  be  thought  of 
in  Ireland  or  in  Austria.  It  is  compelled  to  teach,  and 
discuss,  and  explain.  It  even  afiects  to  join,  to  some 
extent,  in  the  progress  of  Protestant  society." 

If  only  ^ve  could,  by  Christian  Missions,  Americanize 
the  Roman  Catholicism  of  Europe,  then  would  they  be 
fully  justified.  But  their  task  is  much  greater,  even  the 
enlightenment  of  millions  who  know  nothing  of  the  es- 
sentials of  Christianity,  an  uncompromising  assault  upon 
their  polytheism  and  many  of  the  false  principles  of 
their  religious  systems,  and,  in  the  light  of  repeated 
mission  failures  at  reforming  directly  the  effete  and  de- 
cayed Oriental  churches  of  Turkey  and  Persia,  the  inde- 
pendent establishment  of  evangelical  churches,  leaving 
to  the  inscrutal)le  providence  of  God  whether  they  shall 
remain  mere  centres  of  genuine  christian  life,  or  shall- 
also  be  successful  guides  to  the  lost  churches  with  their 
myriad  followers  ])ack  to  "the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the 
Life."  Both  the  Greek  and  the  Latin  communions  are 
full  of  idolatry.  In  Russia  the  Icons,  which  serve  very 
much  the  same  purpose  as  the  idols  of  Vishnu  in  India, 
or  those  of  Kwanon  in  Japan,  are  to  be  found  not  only 
in  every  temple  but  in  nine-tenths  of  the  homes  of  the 


WORSHIP   OF    ICONS   IN   RUSSIA.  469 

land,  from  the  hut  of  the  peasant  to  the  palace  of  the 
Czar.  They  are  pictures  of  Christ,  or  of  the  madonna, 
or  of  some  saint,  painted  in  various  sizes  upon  a  yellow 
or  gold  ground.  They  are  but  half  length,  and  I  have 
never  seen  any  that  were  not  covered,  excepting  the  face 
and  hands,  with  gilded  plaster  drapery.  These  Icons, 
of  the  archaic  Byzantine  style,  are  always  placed  in  the 
most  conspicuous  positions,  and  the  proper  thing  to  do 
before  and  after  every  meal,  whenever  entering  any 
house,  or  on  coming  into  their  immediate  presence  in 
any  temple,  is  to  bow  most  devoutly  and  make  a  sign 
of  the  cross.  I  have  seen  Russians  perform  such  cere- 
monies on  crowded  thoroughfares,  on  happening  to  see 
an  Icon  even  across  the  street.  Some  of  them  are  held 
in  special  reverence,  as  they  are  supposed  to  have  made 
their  advent  into  this  world  without  any  human  instru- 
mentality, and  to  ])e  possessed  of  extraordinary  miracu- 
lous power.  They  receive  the  patronage  of  the  most 
Holy  Synod,  and  of  even  the  Czar  himself.  The  Kazan 
Madonna  Icon  and  several  others  have  annual  fete-days, 
such  as  the  Vladimir  Icon,  which  is  credited  with  once 
repelling  the  Tartars  from  ^loscow.  Mr.  D.  M.  Wallace 
says  of  the  Iberian  ^ladonna  Icon,  that  it  "  occupies  in 
popular  estimation  a  position  analogous  to  the  tutelary 
deities  of  ancient  pagan  cities."  He  says,  he  was  re- 
peatedly told  that,  whenever  the  Czar  visits  Moscow,  he 
goes  first  to  this  Icon's  chapel  to  worship  the  picture. 
Every  day  this  Russian  idol  is  driven  about  the  city  in 
a  carriage  with  four  horses,  the  coachman  with  uncovered 
head,  the  calls  being  made  at  houses,  where  the  hos- 
pitable feeling  toward  the  divine  visitant  is  equal  to  a 
very  generous  contribution.  ^Ir.  Wallace  was  infoiTned 
that  this  is  a  part  of  the  revenue  of  the  Metropolitan  of 
the  church. 

Equally  idolatrous  customs  may  be  seen  in  all  Catholic 
Europe.  I  have  never  met  in  Asia  clearer  evidences  of 
downright  paganism  than  in  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  St. 
Denis'  near  Paris,  St.  Stephen's  at  Vienna,  and  at 
many  other  prominent  shrines  of  Papist  devotion.  In 
the  presence  of  these  heathenish  ceremonials  and  devo- 


470  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

tions,  I  have  often  endeavored  to  apply  the  more  in- 
telligent American  Catholic  theory  that  the  image  is  but 
a  symbol,  a  help  to  the  imagination,  but  have  seldom 
been  successful.  The  vast  majority  of  the  people  per- 
form really  idolatrous  acts  to  the  images  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  and  to  relics  and  pictures  of  saints.  The  doctrine 
of  papal  infallibility  is  plain  encouragement  to  worship 
the  creature  more  than  the  Creator.  When  I  saw  the 
preparations  made  in  St.  Peter's  for  Pius  IX. 's  display 
of  himself  before  the  last  Ecumenical  Council,  especially 
that  great  shining  sun  of  gilded  timbers,  in  whose 
centre  "  the  vicegerent  of  earth  "  was  to  sit  enthroned  as 
the  source  of  infinite  wisdom  and  knowledge  to  all  man- 
kind, I  ^felt  as  truly  that  I  was  in  a  heathen  temple,  as 
when  subsequently  visiting  Asakusa  in  Tokio,  the  chief 
royal  idol  house  in  Bangkok,  Shway  Dagon  pagoda  in 
Rangoon,  the  Golden  Temple  of  Benares,  or  the  great 
Altar  to  Heaven  enclosure  at  Peking.  Indeed  I  had 
more  doubts  about  the  latter  being  a  heathen  shrine, 
than  regarding  the  pure  paganism  of  all  those  prepara- 
tions and  ceremonials  associated  with  the  proclamation 
of  the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility.  The  celibacy  of  the 
Latin  priesthood,  as  also  of  the  Black  Clergy  of  Russia, 
is  notoriously  productive  of  licentiousness,  to  which  the 
confessional,  more  prevalent  in  the  West  than  in  the 
East,  is  the  approach  of  indelicacy.  The  doctrines  of 
baptismal  regeneration,  of  purgatory,  and  of  indulgences 
are  deceptive,  cruel,  and  corrupting,  and  they  also  de- 
mand the  profound  concern  and  earnest  opposition  of 
evangelical  missions. 

Throughout  all  the  populations  of  Greek  and  Catho- 
lic Europe,  multitudes  are  conscientiously  and  energeti- 
cally protesting  against  the  idolatries  and  corruptions 
of  the  established  churches.  Doubtless  these  elements 
of  dissent  will  continue  to  increase,  and  if  left  to  them- 
selves will  ultimately  crystallize  into  various  forms  of 
evangelical  church  life.  But  it  is  a  long  and  perilous 
process  of  development,  as  the  history  of  Protestantism 
has  abundantly  illustrated,  and  our  missions  have 
a  plain  responsibility  to  give  the  benefit  of  experience, 


DISSENT   IN   RUSSIA   AND    SECTS    IN   ROME.  471 

and  to  form  this  discontent  as  soon  as  possible  into 
intelligent  and  practicaljle  shape.  There  are  the  Molo- 
kani  and  Stundisti,  of  Russia,  numbering  together 
several  millions  of  adherents,  who  are  little  more  than 
a  chaotic  mass  of  evangelical  Protestantism  emerging 
from  the  darkness  of  the  established  religious  orders, 
and  anxious  for  light  and  leadership.  No  doubt  the 
fanaticism  of  many  of  the  other  sects  would  vanish  in 
the  presence  of  missionary  instruction  and  example, 
and  here  also  would  be  found  much  valuable  material  at 
hand  for  the  living  temple  of  God.  The  Molokdni  and 
Stundisti  dissenters  are  rapidly  on  the  increase,  despite 
the  opposition  of  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  administra- 
tions. Their  cardinal  doctrine  is  the  Bible,  not  the 
church,  an  all  sufficient  rule  for  faith  and  practice.  The 
establishment  has  sent  missions  to  convert  them  from 
their  heresies,  but  they  have  generally  retired  discomfited 
before  the  Scripture  charges  upon  their  Icons,  saints  and 
Ecumenical  Councils.  Mr.  Wallace  relates  that,  after 
the  defeat  of  one  of  these  missionary  monks,  an  Ortho- 
dox peasant  declared  to  him  regarding  the  public 
disputation:  "It  was  a  great  mistake,  a  very  great 
mistake  !  The  Molokani  are  a  cunning  people.  The 
monk  was  no  match  for  them  ;  they  knew  the  Scriptures 
a  great  deal  better  than  he  did.  The  church  should  not 
condescend  to  discuss  with  heretics." 

Rome  seeks  to  foster  the  impression  that  unity  is  to 
be  found  in  its  communion,  in  contrast  with  the  sec- 
tarianism that  exists  amono^  Protestants.  But  this  is 
deception.  On  the  broad  platform  of  a  mere  nominal 
allegiance  to  the  Pope  there  is,  I  am  persuaded,  a  larger 
number  of  religious  denominations  than  in  the  Protes- 
tant evangelical  world.  And  then,  too,  it  is  a  constant 
surprise  to  a  traveller  in  Papal  lands  to  find  so  many 
boldly  breaking  and  casting  aside  their  ecclesiastical 
fetters,  not  alone  in  the  spirit  of  infidelity  and  godless- 
ness,  but  with  a  conscientious  and  teachable  purpose  to 
conform  to  the  Divine  Will  respecting  both  the  life 
that  now  is  and  that  which  is  to  come.  Multitudes  in 
Italy  to-day  are  discussing  the  question  of  the  coming 


472  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

forms  of  religious  faith  and  practice.  Out  of  the  dis- 
cipline of  their  adversity  large  numbers  of  the  Austrian 
people  are  learning  other  than  lessons  of  political  and 
military  wisdom.  They  are  becoming  educated  not 
only  in  the  sciences  and  arts,  but  also  out  of  their 
bondage  to  ecclesiastical  tyranny.  One  of  the  most 
conspicuous  of  all  the  movements  in  France  to-day  is 
the  endeavor  to  find  a  substitute  for  the  Romanism  that 
has  so  long  been  tried  and  found  wanting.  In  1867  I 
was  sadly  impressed  throughout  France  with  the  enor- 
mous amount  of  infidelity.  In  1880  there  seemed  no 
less  of  it,  but  along-side,  everywhere  apparent,  a  spirit 
of  serious  inquiry  on  the  part  of  many.  Even  in  Spain 
the  revolution  against  Eome  is  spreading,  and  there  are 
signs  not  only  of  impatience  with  all  restraints  upon 
faith  and  practice,  but  also  of  earnest  purpose  to  know 
the  truth  and  to  obey  God  rather  than  man.  The  Free 
and  Waldensian  Churches  of  Italy,  the  Societe  Evan- 
gelique  of  France,  and  that  also  of  Geneva,  several 
Evangelical  Missions  in  Bohemia  and  also  in  Spain,  all 
assisted  by  the  Evangelical  Concinental  Society,  are 
meeting  with  constant  encouragement. 

Undoubtedly,  however,  the  strongest  popular  current 
away  from  Rome  is  in  the  direction  of  infidelity.  Mill- 
ions are  thoroughly  disgusted  with  the  paganism  of  the 
Papacy,  and,  because  of  their  ignorance  of  God's  Word 
and  distorted  views  of  Protestant  Christianity,  are 
determined  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  any  kind  of  re- 
ligion. It  is  this  element  in  the  situation  that  should 
especially  arrest  the  attention  of  all  evangelical  churches. 
The  difficulty  largely  is  want  of  that  very  information, 
which  our  missionaries  are  scattering  throughout 
heathen  lands.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  conceive  of 
the  depth  of  religious  ignorance  prevailing,  where  for  so 
many  centuries  there  has  been  nominal  christian  instruc- 
tion. The  youngest  children  of  Protestant  evangelical 
Sunday  schools  know  more  of  the  Bible  and  of  the 
distinctive  doctrines  of  the  christian  faith,  than  half  the 
adult  populations  of  Greek  and  Catholic  countries. 
The  Russian  peasant's   answer   to  the   inquiry  for  the 


POLITICAL    REST    AND    L^^REST.  473 

names  of  the  three  Persons  of  the  Trinity  was  not 
exceptional,  — ^'  How  can  one  not  know  that,  Batushka? 
Of  course  it  is  the  Saviour,  the  Mother  of  God,  and 
Saint  Nicholas,  the  miracle  worker."  Multitudes  of 
the  Catholics  have  never  seen  the  Bible  in  their  own 
tongue,  and  have  never  heard  a  line  of  it  read  except 
in  Latin,  and  know  nothing  more  of  its  contents  than 
of  the  Koran  or  the  Vedas.  And  with  the  astonishing 
religious  ignorance  which  prevails,  there  is  associated  a 
dormant  condition  of  the  national  conscience,  which  in 
all  the  lands  increases  the  moral  and  spiritual  darkness 
and  adds  emphasis  to  the  duty  of  evangelical  missions. 
The  political  unrest  of  especially  Greek  and  Catholic 
Europe  must  be  taken  into  account,  in  forming  judg- 
ments upon  the  duty  and  prospects  for  evangelical  mis- 
sions in  those  lands.  This  disquietude  and  uncertainty 
are  evidently  greater  than  in  Protestant  Europe.  Eng- 
land and  Germany  have  their  political  troubles.  Landed 
property  in  Great  Britain  must  yet  make  larger  conces- 
sions to  labor  than  is  yet  contemplated  by  the  feudal 
barons  of  to-day.  The  agony  of  disestablishment  must 
be  borne,  and  free  trade  may  be  compelled  to  learn 
some  lessons  in  the  school  of  a  pi*otective  tariff.  Quite 
probably  the  House  of  Lords  will  become  elective,  and 
the  throne  be  all  of  the  hereditary  element  which  the 
British  nation  of  the  future  will  endure.  But,  then, 
none  of  these  political  revolutions  threaten  to  shake  the 
gigantic  and  venerable  political  structure  to  its  founda- 
tions. The  English  Constitution  is  not  in  peril.  And 
to  a  great  extent  all  this  is  true  of  Germany.  This 
Protestant  nation  also  has  its  battle  to  fight  with  Rome, 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  result.  There  may  be 
temporary  reverses,  but  the  lessons  of  history,  the  char- 
acter of  the  present  population,  and  the  circumstances 
of  surrounding  nations,  render  it  highly  improbable  that 
the  Fatherland  will  ever  be  In'ought  into  subjection  to 
the  Vatican.  Bismarck,  notwithstanding  all  the  service 
he  has  rendered  in  the  field  of  statesmanship,  has  be- 
come unendurable,  and  must  give  way  to  a  more  liberal 
premiership.     Continued  emigration   to  America  must 


474  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

be  suffered,  until  the  state  has  learned  some  new  les- 
sons in  political  economy.  From  France,  Germany  has 
now  little  to  fear,  since  her  late  foe  has  become  absorbed 
for  an  indefinite  time  with  home  questions,  since  Italy 
is  ready  for  German  alliance  on  account  of  the  Tunis 
affair,  and  since  between  Berlin  and  London  the  political 
relation  is  quite  sure  to  be  increasingly  cordial  and 
mutually  helpful. 

But  the  political  situation  is  very  different  in  the 
Greek  and  Catholic  countries  of  Europe.  The  Eussian 
ship  of  state  is  in  the  centre  of  a  cyclone.  It  seems  im- 
possible for  the  irrepressible  Nihilist  movement  not  to 
end  in  a  revolution.  The  emancipated  serfs  and  other 
peasants  are  quite  thoroughly  dissatisfied  with  the  situa- 
tion. The  noblesse  are  full  of  disappointment  and 
complaint.  The  new  Czar  seems  unable  to  learn  the 
lessons  of  the  past,  and  has  gone  back  to  the  policy  of 
Nicholas.  The  Austro-Hungarian  Empire  is  but  an 
aggregation  of  nationalities,  unlike  in  race  and  language. 
It  is  well  understood  that  if  the  people  of  Hungary  rise 
again,  they  will  at  least  not  have  to  surrender  to  a  Rus- 
sian army.  Austria  took  this  risk  at  the  time  of  the 
Crimean  war.  Against  the  government  of  Italy  the 
whole  power  of  the  Vatican  is  concentrated.  A  vast 
army  of  priests  is  continually  on  the  alert  with  the 
latest  and  most  approved  weapons,  to  reconquer  the 
states  of  the  church.  It  is  a  very  superficial  and  san- 
guine view  of  the  situation  in  France  to  consider  the 
question  of  government  a  finally  settled  one.  The 
majority  of  the  population  is  Republican  to-day,  but 
not  from  conscientious  political  conviction.  It  is  chiefly 
resentment  against  Imperialism,  under  which,  at  Sedan, 
the  nation  suffered  such  terrilile  mortification.  It  seemed 
to  me  thirteen  years  ago  that  the  people  in  Paris  and 
throughout  the  provinces  were  fully  as  contented  with 
their  form  of  government  as  to-day.  Already  they  are 
appreciating  that  their  army  is  larger  and  their  taxes 
heavier  than  ever  before,  and  that  Gambetta  is  as  really 
emperor  as  was  ever  Louis  Napoleon.  French  Repub- 
licanism is  not  as  in  America  a  stalwart  growth  from  the 


PROTESTANTISM   GROSSLY   MISREPRESENTED.  475 

soil ;  it  is  an  artificial  flower  —  a  decoration.  In  Spain 
the  curse  of  the  Inquisition  still  rests  upon  the  nation. 
The  treasury  is  almost  as  hopelessly  bankrupt  as  that 
of  Turkey.     The  civil  service  is  rotten  to  the  core. 

But  what  bearing  has  this  special  political  unrest  of 
Greek  and  Catholic  Europe  upon  the  duty  and  prospects 
of  evangelical  missions  in  those  portions  of  the  conti- 
nent? The  masses  of  the  populations  are  dissatisfied 
with  the  constantly  disturbed  situation.  They  weary  of 
the  continual  rumblings  of  the  political  earthquakes  be- 
neath their  feet.  They  ask,  if  there  is  not  something  in 
this  world  for  them  —  solid,  abiding?  The  priesthood 
tell  them  of  the  church,  its  ordinances,  its  penances,  its 
absolutions.  But  they  know  better.  They  have  tried 
such  refuge,  and  found  it  utterly  insecure.  Indeed,  to 
them  it  is  very  plain  that  ecclesiastical  corruption  and 
political  intrigue  are  the  chief  causes  of  much  of  their 
trouble.  The  alternative  before  the  majority  of  their 
minds  is  not  evangelical  Protestantism,  but  infidelity 
and  atheism  against  which  they  recoil.  From  their  in- 
fancy the  Protestant  faith  has  been  constantly  misrepre- 
sented to  them,  until  the  prevailing  conception  of  it  is 
as  of  a  hideous  monster,  more  dreadful  than  Communism 
or  Nihilism.  Multitudes  have  broken  through  the  cleri- 
cal barriers  erected  to  keep  them  in  ignorance,  and  know 
better  of  the  true  character  of  Protestant  Christianity, 
but  by  far  the  greater  number  are  still  under  the  domi- 
nation of  the  priestly  illusions.  Evangelical  missions 
should  hasten  to  dispel  these  illusions,  and  to  break 
down  these  barriers.  Next  to  that  mere  formalism, 
with  which  the  unconverted  are  so  prone  to  seek  to 
satisfy  their  religious  natures,  this  prevailing  ignorance 
of  the  Bible  and  Protestant  Christianity  is  the  chief  hold 
of  the  Greek  and  Catholic  churches  in  Europe  to-day. 
Shall  it  be  allowed  to  remain  so,  especially  after  that 
now  the  opportunity  is  open  for  mission  work  every- 
where? Where  this  information  is  not  spreading,  many 
are  nevertheless  contemplating  the  fact  of  the  greater 
permanency  and  prosperity  of  the  Protestant  nations. 
Why  is  it  ?  they  ask ;  and  their  inquiring  attitude  is  the 


476  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

special  opportunity  for  evangelical  missions.  Moreover 
there  is  nothing  like  a  disturbed  and  anxious  state  of 
society  to  unmask  error.  In  the  confusion  and  con- 
sequent carelessness  amid  conflicting  rumors  and  clashing 
interests,  the  sheep's  covering  slips  off  of  the  wolf.  To- 
day the  missionary  in  eastern  and  southern  Europe  has 
not  to  enter  upon  any  philippics  against  the  established 
priesthood,  but  simply  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
The  masses  know  even  better  than  the  missionaries  that 
from  which  they  would  flee.  But  whitherward?  is  their 
cry ;  and  there  are  almost  none  to  tell  them. 

Moreover  it  is  always  wisdom  to  correct  error  at  its 
fountain  head,  especially  when  streams  therefrom  are 
flowing  copiously  into  various  directions,  and  into  far- 
ofi"  regions.  From  Europe  the  Greek  faith  is  being 
transplanted  over  Northern  and  Central  Asia,  and  the 
missions  of  the  Papacy  cover  the  globe.  The  seed  that  is 
sown  in  Europe  determines  largely  the  harvests  that  shall 
be  gathered  in  every  land.  I  have,  indeed,  met  in  Asm 
many  Catholic  priests,  who  seem  to  have  been  influenced 
by  the  accompanying  evangelical  missions,  somewhat  as 
Catholicism  in  America  has  been  by  our  enlightened 
Protestantism,  but  it  is  not  so  with  emissaries  of  Rome 
in  Mexico  and  South  America,  in  Africa  and  Madagas- 
car. To  wait  and  encounter  in  detail  these  corrupt 
systems  is  to  give  the  enemy  great  advantage,  such  as 
it  has  unproved  in  Japan,  China  and  Indiiu  Next  to 
the  natural  opposition  of  the  human  heart,  the  strongest 
prejudice,  which  evangelical  missions  have  to  meet  in 
those  densely  populated  lands,  is  the  result  of  previous 
Roman  Catholic  impressions. 

The  most  hopeful  evangelical  influences  from  aliroad 
to-day  are  penetrating  Russia  through  German  and 
Scandinavian  channels.  At  Odessa  and  Tiflis  are 
flourishing  Baptist  churches.  Very  little  account  need 
be  taken  of  the  suggested  union  between  the  Russian 
Church  and  the  Anglican  Establishment.  It  is  utterly 
impracticable,  at  least  for  the  present,  and  has  no  ad- 
vocacy in  the  East.  An  alliance  with  the  other 
branches  of  the   Eastern   Orthodox  Church  would    be 


THE    DAWN    OF    THE    MORNING.  477 

possible  long  before  the  realization  of  this  wild  scheme. 
Of  the  mission  work  among  them  mider  the  American 
Board  we  have  already  made  mention.  In  Greece  there 
is  a  little  band  of  British  and  American  missionaries  at 
work  under  great  embarrassment  for  want  of  adequate 
support.  The  most  encouragement  there  lately  is  the 
placing  by  the  government  of  the  Greek  New  Testa- 
ment in  all  the  public  schools.  Foundation  work  at 
several  stations  in  Italy  is  being  successfully  prosecuted 
by  English  and  American  Baptists  (south),  Methodists, 
Wesleyans,  Scotch  Presbyterians,  and  others.  The 
American  Board  and  Missionary  Union  (Baptist,  north) 
are  much  encouraged  at  their  few  Spanish  stations.  The 
Wesleyans  are  located  both  in  Spain  and  Portugal. 
The  American  Board  missionaries  at  Prague  and 
Briinn,  of  the  Austrian  empire,  are  rejoicing  over  the 
partial  success  of  the  principles  of  religious  liberty, 
largely  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance.  In  France  the  evangelical  mission  outlook  is 
specially  hopeful.  Under  the  McAll  mission,  the 
Baptist,  Methodist,  and  other  foreign  and  local  societies, 
over  100  preaching  stations  have  been  opened  in  the 
last  few  years.  I  have  been  to  some  of  them,  found 
them  well  attended,  and  never  had  more  earnest  listen- 
ers. Several  religious  papers  have  ah*eady  secured  a 
large  circulation,  and  wise  movements  are  being  made 
in  the  direction  of  theological  seminary  instruction. 
When  these  various  influences  are  better  under  way,  and 
French  Protestantism,  with  its  million  adherents,  is  still 
more  thoroughly  evangelized,  or  spiritualized,  the  time 
may  come  for  larger  success  to  the  brave  Hyacinthe 
movement.  When  hearing  him  preach  and  meeting 
him  socially  I  could  not  but  feel  that  his  leadership 
would  yet  contribute  materially  to  the  evangelization  of 
Eoman  Catholic  Europe. 


478  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

PROTESTANT  EUROPE. 

NLY  one  chapter,  and  that  as  brief  as 
possible,  and  then  we  must  embark  from 
Liverpool.  I  feel  it  a  real  disappointment 
not  to  be  able  here  again  to  linger  with  my 
reader,  and  revisit  scenes  famous  in  history, 
or  celebrated  for  art,  or  illustrious  for  scien- 
tific attainments.  How  strong  the  temp- 
tation not  to  hasten  past  the  great  universities  of 
Germany  and  England,  the  places  for  all  time  to  be 
associated  with  the  names  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  and 
Frederick  the  Great,  and  Schiller,  and  Goethe,  and 
Shakespeare,  and  Bunyan,  and  John  Knox,  and 
Walter  Scott,  and  many  others,  as  also  such  vast 
collections  of  the  products  of  human  genius  as  have 
been  made  for  the  museums  at  Berlin  and  Lon- 
don, and  the  galleries  at  Dresden  and  Munich.  It 
would  be  a  gmtification  to  spend  a  little  while  to- 
gether in  the  Charlottenburg  Mausoleum,  to  witness 
the  Passion  Play  at  Ober-Ammergau  in  Bavaria,  to 
stroll  amid  some  of  the  Alpine  scenery  with  which  so 
delightfully  we  renewed  our  acquaintance  last  summer, 
and  especially  to  our  "  home  "  in  Lucerne  I  would  like 
to  invite  my  reader  —  for  location  the  grandest  and 
most  beautiful  to  be  found  in  all  the  world.  Our  com- 
pany might  be  mutually  enjoyable  in  Westminster  Abbey 
and  the  Temple  Church,  at  Spurgeon's  and  Parker's,  in 
Hyde  Park  and  at  Windsor,  in  Edinburgh,  or  among 
the  Scottish  lakes  and  highlands.  But  all  these  and 
scores  of  other  interesting  places  must  not  divert  at- 
tention from  the  chief  purpose  of  these  few  homeward 


GUARDIANSHIP  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  GERMANY.    479 

paragraphs.  From  the  great  world  mission-field  we  re- 
enter the  principal  lines  of  Emmanuel's  forces  which  are 
being  marshalled  for  universal  conquest.  Our  upper- 
most anxiety,  far  greater  than  when  we  left  the  Pacific 
shores  of  America,  is  to  find  these  forces  strong  and 
strengthening,  with  prospects  of  more  complete  equip- 
ment, more  zeal  for  aggressive  warfare,  more  faith  in 
God.  Upon  evangelical  Christendom,  as  included 
chiefly  in  Protestant  Europe  and  America,  rests  the 
enormous  responsibility  of  reconquering  the  ground 
which  has  been  lost  by  Greek  and  Catholic  disloyalty 
and  cowardice,  and  of  capturing  the  hearts  and  lives  of  a 
thousand  millions  of  pagan  and  anti-christian  popu- 
lations. In  the  presence  of  such  responsibility  how  in- 
significant appear  the  discoveries  of  science,  the  tri- 
umphs of  art,  the  manners  and  customs  of  peoples,  and 
the  politics  of  governments.  We  are  facing  Mont 
Blanc,  and  everything  else  is  so  dwarfed  in  comparison 
as  to  elude  attention. 

To  two  of  the  most  important  elements  of  the  situa- 
tion I  have  already  alluded ;  namely,  the  stability  and 
permanency  of  Great  Britain  and  Germany.  Incalcula- 
l^ly  much  depends  upon  this.  If  either  of  these  great 
Protestant  powers  should  lose  its  position  of  command- 
ing influence ;  if  it  should  fall  before  foreign  enemies, 
or  be  ruined  by  hostile  forces  from  within  its  own  bor- 
ders, the  disaster  to  the  cause  of  Christian  Missions, 
humanly  speaking,  would  be  overwhelming.  To  them 
it  has  pleased  God  to  intrust  the  guardianship  of  evan- 
gelical labor  throughout  Europe  and  the  world.  Ger- 
man}"  has  vastly  the  most  influence  upon  the  continent ; 
Great  Britain  throughout  Asia,  Africa,  South  America, 
and  the  myriad  isles  of  the  sea.  Shoukl  the  former  be- 
come seriously  crippled,  the  auto-da-fe  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion would  reappear  in  Spain ;  France  would  expel  the 
Protestants  as  she  did  the  Huguenots  in  the  days  of 
Louis  XIV.  ;  Italy  would  be  reconsigned  to  the  dark- 
ness Avhich  preceded  Cavour ;  Austria  would  sweep  the 
board  of  all  its  reluctant  concessions  to  religious  tolera- 
tion :  and  Russia  would  resume  its  normal  attitude  of 


480  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

autocratic  hostility  to  all  dissent.  Neither  Great  Britain 
nor  America  would  be  able  to  stem  the  disastrous  tide 
upon  the  European  continent,  should  German  power  be 
broken,  and  the  intrigues  of  priestcraft  resume  sway. 
Still  more  calamitous,  however,  would  be  the  destruc- 
tion of  Great  Britain's  financial  prosperity  and  maritime 
sovereignty.  Her  money  supports  the  majority  of 
Protestant  missionaries,  and  her  political  power  secures 
life  and  liberty  to  nine-tenths  of  evangelical  laborers 
throughout  all  pagan  and  anti-christian  lands.  But  for 
British  influence  not  one  of  the  1,000  missionaries  could 
remain  among  India's  250  millions  of  population.  They 
were  British  cannon  which  battered  down  the  walls  of 
Chinese  isolation,  and  British  cannon  kept  them  from 
being  rebuilt.  Both  the  Peking  and  Tokio  imperial 
governments  know  full  well  the  weakness  of  the  Amer- 
ican navy.  In  all  the  lands  of  Islam,  save  those  under 
the  Dutch  flag,  it  is  English  gold  and  naval  strength 
that  renders  safe  evangelical  life  and  labor.  Turkey, 
Egypt,  Persia,  Zanzibar,  they  have  a  measure  of  respect 
for  the  world's  banking  centre  in  London,  and  know 
that  their  lines  of  comumnication  are  at  the  mercy  of 
the  British  fleet.  Throughout  Africa  and  South  Amer- 
ica, Polynesia,  and  the  West  Indies,  upon  a  thousand 
highways  in  each  quarter  of  the  globe,  mankind  hears 
continually  the  police  tread  of  British  power.  Hence 
peace  and  order  generally  prevail.  Hence  it  is  that 
over  4,000  missionaries  can  toil  on  with  none  to  molest 
nor  make  them  afraid.  Hence  it  is  that  native  christians 
are  generally  safe  from  bloody  persecution.  Nothing  is 
plainer  than  that  to  British  national  influence  must  be 
credited  a  very  large  measure  of  the  glorious  success 
and  world-wide  prospect  of  our  Christian  Missions.  We 
forgive  and  almost  forget  the  hindrances  which  occa- 
sionally have  been  cast  in  the  Avay  hy  a  mistaken  and 
temporizing  policy,  when  we  reckon  up  the  enormous 
aggregate  on  the  other  side  of  the  balance-sheet. 

Profoundly  then  may  we  thank  God  because  it  is  so 
evident  that  the  power  both  of  Great  Britain  and  Ger- 
many is  stable  and  permanent.     No  present  nor  pros- 


America's  pnosPERiTr  not  England's  ruin.     481 

pective  drain  from  emigration  will  lessen  the  number  of 
their  populations.  The  gain  from  natural  increase  is 
sure  to  outnumber  the  loss  ;  and  it  must  be  remembered 
that  under  ordinary  circumstances  emigrants  are  not  the 
most  capable,  industrious,  thrifty,  and  hence  desirable 
part  of  the  population  from  which  they  come,  however 
welcome  to  the  labor  markets  of  new  countries.  Amer- 
icans are  apt  to  talk  very  flippantly  about  the  blows  to 
England's  manufacturing  and  agricultural  and  commer- 
cial industries.  Indeed  it  w^as  gratifying  to  see  the 
demand  for  American  goods  on  the  rapid  increase 
throughout  China  and  Japan,  to  observe  that  the  ab- 
normal development  of  the  cotton  industry  of  India  and 
Egypt  during  our  civil  w^ar  has  passed  away,  to  meet 
caravans  in  Western  Asia  laden  with  the  productions 
of  our  new  w^orld,  to  note  the  Turks  armed  with 
the  American  rifle,  and  to  ride  through  Russia  behind 
American  locomotives.  It  was  indeed  a  pleasure  to 
come  across  many  English,  Scotch  and  Irish  meat  and 
grain  markets,  stocked  from  our  Western  prairies,  and 
to  be  told  by  the  poor  hoAv  possil)le  it  was  now  for  them 
to  aff'ord  a  little  of  "rich  folks' food."  But  it  should  not 
be  forgotten  that  Great  Britain's  possessions  are  not 
confined  to  a  little  cluster  of  islands  off  the  coast  of 
Europe.  The  colonial  development  of  the  empire  in  all 
parts  of  the  world  has  been  immense.  This  has  been, 
and  doubtless  will  continue  to  be  a  full  offset  to  all 
American  rivalries.  Nor  are  these  vast  colonies  to 
be  allowed  to  secede  as  did  those  of  our  revolutionary 
forefathers.  That  was  a  severe  and  costly  lesson  to 
British  statesmanship ;  but  it  is  proving  a  most  profita- 
ble one.  Whatever  may  be  the  coercion  practised 
toward  other  races,  Anglo-Saxon  colonies  are  to  be 
held  by  justice,  and  generosity,  and  consultation,  and 
general  community  of  interests.  Few  think  of  rebel- 
lion in  Australia,  or  Canada,  or  South  Africa,  or  New 
Zealand.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  all  these 
scores  of  colonial  possessions  are  merely  ripening  for 
local  self-government.  They  are  as  thoroughly  loyal 
to  the  British  crown  as  London,  Manchester,  or  Glas- 


482  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

gow.  Their  uiilitary  assistance  in  any  time  of  danger 
is  as  ready  as  that  of  the  Queen's  Own  Guards,  or  of 
the  Scottish  Highlanders.  Every  effort  is  made  to 
encourage  this  loyalty.  In  Ireland,  which,  however,  is 
not  Anglo-Saxon  but  Celtic,  there  appears  alone  a  par- 
tial exception.  Not  far  distant  is  the  day,  when,  in 
view  of  British  colonial  development,  American  compe- 
tition may  deprive  England  of  all  her  home  agricultural 
and  manufacturing  industries ;  and  yet,  as  the  banking 
centre  of  the  world,  as  the  collecting  and  distributing 
point  of  the  commerce  of  all  nations,  and  as  most  ad- 
vantageously situated  for  the  rule  of  the  seas,  Great 
Britain  will  continue  to  be  a  first-class  power,  second  to 
none  in  influence  throughout  the  globe.  Germany  will 
still  have  her  special  advantages  in  Europe,  and  the 
United  States  of  America  theirs  upon  this  continent  and 
by  moral  influence  throughout  the  world ;  but  Britain 
also  has  her  inheritance,  for  which  she  has  been  qualify- 
ing through  these  many  centuries,  and  it  is  not  in  the 
power  of  man  to  deprive  her  of  its  enjoyment  nor  the 
world  of  the  consequent  benediction. 

Yet  by  no  means  is  the  work  assigned  of  God  to 
Protestant  Europe  that  simply  of  giving  material  and 
moral  support  to  foreign  evangelizing  enterprise. 
There  is  an  immense  amount  of  home  mission  work  to 
be  done,  and  especially  in  London.  In  this  city,  twice 
the  size  of  Paris  or  of  New  York  and  its  immediate 
surroundings,  there  is  a  greater  accumulation  of  poverty 
as  well  as  of  wealth  than  in  any  other  city  of  Christen- 
dom. The  traveller,  who  goes  directly  from  the  railway 
station  to  his  hotel  or  lodgings,  and  from  thence  during 
his  brief  stay  daily  by  "  bus,"  cab  or  underground  rail- 
way to  the  ordinary  places  of  interest  to  the  tourist, 
little  dreams  of  the  wretchedness  and  vice  close  to 
which  he  is  often  passing.  There  are  streets  in  Lon- 
don where  it  is  far  less  safe  unaccompanied  by  a  police- 
man than  in  the  most  degraded  districts  of  Paris, 
Berlin  or  Yietnia.  The  amount  of  intemperance  is 
frightful  to  contemplate.  And  yet  it  is  a  hasty  judg- 
ment that,  therefore,  English  Christianity  has  failed  in 


PAUPERS   AND   CHARITY.  483 

the  very  centre  of  its  opportunity  and  power.  Eng- 
land, and  especially  London,  has  been  now  for  many 
generations  the  asylum  of  the  dregs  of  the  continent. 
No  place  where  personal  freedom  is  so  surely  guaranteed 
in  all  Europe,  and  it  is  only  a  few  hours'  sail  across  the 
channel.  Tens  of  thousands  of  French  and  Itahans 
and  Spaniards  and  others  have  fallen  there  by  the  way, 
because  they  had  not  sufficient  funds  and  perseverance 
to  cross  the  Atlantic.  New  York  is  bad  enouo:h  as  it 
is,  but  much  larger  inevitably  Avould  be  the  number  of 
the  degraded  and  vicious,  if  for  these  many  years  past 
there  had  been  no  vast  western  outlet  for  this  mighty  in- 
coming stream  of  foreign  emigration.  As  well  visit 
Chinatown,  in  San  Francisco,  and  then  pronounce  upon 
the  character  and  results  of  American  Christianity,  as 
to  take  into  account  a  vast  deal  of  the  wretchedness 
and  crime  that  is  in  London  and  England,  and  yet 
foreign,  and  then  form  judgment  of  the  quality  and 
utility  of  English  Christianity  and  English  christian 
civilization. 

Another  leading  cause  of  the  disproportionately  large 
number  of  the  pauper,  and  hence  criminal,  class  in  Eng- 
land is  the  unwisely  dispensed  charity  of  the  British 
public.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  English  Christianity  that 
nowhere  upon  the  globe  is  there  an3^thing  like  as  much 
giving  to  the  poor.  But  the  method  is  generally  that 
of  a  promiscuous  scattering  of  alms,  or  of  out  and  out 
bestowments,  without  any  thought  of  labor  returns. 
This  is  surely  the  easiest  way  of  attending  to  the  duty 
of  benevolence.  It  is  the  method  to  which  a  great- 
hearted philanthropy  will  the  most  naturall}^  prompt. 
But  there  is  no  surer  way  of  multiplying  a  dependent 
pauper  class  of  citizens.  Whenever  it  is  at  all  prac- 
ticable, or  hy  the  utmost  painstaking  it  can  be  made  to 
be  practicable,  the  alms  should  be  changed  into  the 
honest  reward  of  honest  labor.  Self-respect  and  inde- 
pendence of  character  are  thus  preserved  to  the  poor, 
and  they  are  encouraged  to  make  a^'ail  of  every  oppor- 
tunity to  master  their  situation,  and  to  keep  from 
sinking  into  the  pauper  and  degraded  classes.     It  has 


484  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

been  a  constant  surprise,  the  better  I  have  become 
acquainted  with  English  society,  to  find  such  a  multi- 
plication on  all  hands  of  benevolent  enterprises.  There 
seem  to  be  twice,  if  not  three  times  as  many  of 
them  as  in  America.  But  the  larger  proportion  of 
this  giving,  I  am  persuaded,  is  misdirected  philan- 
thropy, which  is  a  reflection  upon  the  head  rather  than 
the  heart  of  British  Christianity.  I  wish  I  had  space 
right  here  to  describe  the  London  Workingmen's  Col- 
lege, an  admirable  semi-charitable  institution,  where  I  had 
the  privilege  of  visiting  and  addressing.  It  is  located 
at  45  Great  Ormond  street,  Bloomsbury,  W.  C. 

Another  surprise  has  been  to  find  how  much  of  the 
most  lowly  w^ork  among  the  poor,  the  degraded  and  the 
vicious  is  done  by  the  aristocratic  clergy  and  laity  of 
the  established  churches  of  Great  Britain  and  Germany. 
The  same  is  true  also  in  Holland  and  Scandinavia.  The 
middle  classes  are  more  reached  by  the  dissenting 
churches  throughout  England  and  Scotland.  The  chapels 
of  the  nonconformists  do  not  make  much  of  an  architec- 
tural show  upon  the  public  streets  in  comparison  with 
the  many  noble  and  venerable  sanctuaries  of  the  Angli- 
can Establishment,  but  there  is  a  host  of  them,  and 
they  are  generally  comfortable  and  attractive  within, 
and  the  average  of  attendance  is  better  than  in 
the  State  churches.  The  chapel  congregations  impress 
the  visitor  as  plainly  made  up  of  the  families  of  trades- 
men, mechanics,  agriculturists  and  others,  who  by  hard, 
persevering  work  and  frugality  are  masters  of  their 
situations  in  life.  But  of  these  middle  classes  there  is 
only  a  scattering  in  the  promiscuous  assemblies  for 
divine  worship  of  the  Establishment.  In  some  places, 
as  at  Westminster  Abbey  and  the  Temple  Church,  the 
distinguished  preaching  and  elaborate  music  are  meant 
only  for  the  upper  ranks  of  society,  but  generally  the 
public  is  admitted  freely  and  cordially,  and  many  of  the 
lower  classes  especially  avail  themselves  of  the  oppor- 
tunity. They  have  a  feeling  of  a  right  to  be  there,  as 
upon  the  street  or  m  a  public  park,  because  the  build- 
ings are  State  property,  and  most  of  the  endowments 


ENGLISH   CHURCHES    AND    CHAPELS.  485 

and  incomes  are  from  investments  and  government 
grants.  In  the  chapels  the  boxes  are  almost  always 
passed  aromid  for  contributions,  and  often  such  pres- 
sures are  brought  to  bear  that  the  very  poor  are 
made  to  feel  very  much  embarrassed.  In  some  prom- 
inent London  dissenting  chapels  I  have  heard  the 
collection  prefticed  with  such  reminder  to  strangers 
that  they  should  not  consent  for  the  hour  to  gratu- 
itous religious  privileges,  that  I  have  felt  very  indig- 
nant and  repelled.  Moreover,  among  the  established 
clergy  and  laity  there  is  more  recognition  and  cor- 
diality to  strangers  in  the  House  of  God  than  among 
dissenters.  Their  extreme  of  aristocratic  bearing 
elsewhere  may  prompt  this  difference  of  conduct  at 
public  worship  as  a  sort  of  atonement.  I  never  had 
a  rebuff  from  a  Church  of  England  clergyman,  and 
when  on  leaving  London  I  went  on  purpose  to  get  one 
at  the  headquarters  of  the  proud  S.  P.  G.  Mission,  I 
received,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  polite  and  cordial 
treatment.  But  half  the  time  at  dissenting  chapels  I 
have  had  no  ])Ooks  passed  to  me,  no  word  of  greeting 
from  any  of  the  parishioners,  something  in  the  manner 
or  the  words  spoken  that  made  me  feel  uncomfortable  in 
the  seat,  and  twice  at  the  close  of  the  services  the  minister 
has  refused  to  speak  to  me  without  formal  introduction. 
Some  reasons  Avould,  therefore,  appear  obvious,  why 
other  riff-raff,  besides  American  travellers,  are  more  at 
home  in  churches  of  the  Anglican  Establishment  than 
in  many  at  least  of  the  Dissenting  chapels.  Just  out 
of  London,  where  we  were  visiting,  a  rector,  the 
younger  son  of  an  old  aristocratic  family,  had  been 
lately  settled.  The  wealthiest  member  of  his  parish  im- 
mediately invited  him  to  dine.  The  invitation  was 
declined,  but  repeated.  Several  days  passed  without 
the  second  reply,  when  it  was  learned  that  the  time  was 
1)eing  taken  to  look  up  the  family  antecedents  of  the 
expectant  hosts.  And  yet  that  blue-blooded  ecclesias- 
tic would  have  trudged  off  on  call,  even  at  midnight,  to 
the  furthermost  limits  of  his  parish  to  perform  a  chris- 
tian  office    for    some    poor   ragamuffin.       When   such 


486  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

features  are    observed,  and  we   recall  the  incalculable 
service  of  the  Church  of  England  through  its  feith  and 
worship,  the  fact  that  despite  all  its  "broad  views"  and 
laxities  it  has  chiefly  contributed  to  preserve  English 
Christianity  from  the  rationalism  and  infidelity  of  the 
continent ;  and  when  we  remember  also  what  a  hold  it 
has  upon  wealth   and   fashion    and  power,  how   many 
names  it   has  enrolled  of  men  eminent  for  piety  like 
Jeremy  Taylor   and   Archbishop  Leighton  and  Henry 
Venn,  and  what  influence  its  ritual  has  throughout  the 
world  upon  land  and  sea,  the  repetition  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer  and  the  Apostles'  Creed,  the  prayer  for  the  Sov- 
ereign and  successors ;  when  all  these  things,  and  many 
more  that  are  imposing  and  attractive,  heart-satisfying 
and  Christ-like,  are  in  mind,  I  almost  forget  the  criti- 
cism of  dissent,  and  do  indeed  thank  God  for  the  vast 
over-balance  of  s^ood  which  the  Ans^lican  Establishment 
has  been,  still  is,  and  yet  promises  to  be  to  the  world. 
And  still  I  believe  that  it  will  be  a  great  cause  for 
congratulation  when  the  English,  Scotch,  and  continen- 
tal Protestant  State  Churches  are  disestablished.     Ever}^ 
present  advantage  would  be  retained  that  is  of  special 
value,  if,  for  example,  the  English  Church  should  hence- 
forth hold  to  England  the  same  relation  as  that  of  the 
Protestant   Episcopal    Ciiurch   to  America.     Disestab- 
lishment in  Protestant  Europe   would  strengthen   the 
state,  and  deprive  Greek  and  Catholic  Europe  of  that 
example  of  political  and  religious  interdependence  which 
so  helps  their  continuance  of  State  and  Church  alliances. 
It  would  be  a  o^reat  advantao^e  to  the  Protestant  Estab- 
lished  Churches  themselves  to  be  rid  of  the  load  of 
political  responsibility,   which    so  largely  monopolizes 
their   councils,   their   anxieties    and   efforts.      In    each 
country  disestablishment  would  consideral:)ly  clarify  the 
minds   of  multitudes  with  respect  to  the  character  of 
true   religion.     A  vast  amount  of  irritation  would  be 
allayed,  and  much  of  the  strength,  expended  at  present 
by  non-conformity  upon  its  various   conflicts  with  the 
State    church,    could   be   turned   more   profitably  into 
direct   evangelizing   enterprises.     It   is   sad  to   see  so 


AWAKENING   OF   RELIGIOUS   LIFE.  487 

much  waste  of  power  in  the  pulpit,  press,  and  conversa- 
tion, over  this  old  innovation  of  Constantme,  and  which 
the  religious  life  of  evangelical  Christendom  has    out- 
o-rown      A  o-reat  relief  indeed  it  would  l>e  to  no  longer 
contemplate  the  possibility  of  a  Henry  VIIL  becommg 
the  head  of  the  Anglican  church.     The  moral  character 
of  the  present  Queen  of  Great  Britain  is  above  reproach, 
which  we  wish  we  could  say  of  the  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many ;  but  it  is  notorious  that  the  Prince  of  Wales  is 
under  a  social  cloud,  and  generally  the  moral  atmos- 
phere   of   Protestant,  as  well  as  Catholic  and    Greek 
court  circles  in  Europe,  is  not  far  superior  to  that  of 
the  stao-e.     Much  preferable  would  it  be  for  the  Bench 
of  Bishops  in  England  to  be  the  highest  authority  of  the 
Ano-lican  church,  for  the  Scottish  kirk  to  attend  to  its 
owS   affairs,    after   the    brilliant   example  of  the  Free 
church,  and  for  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  churches  on 
the  continent  to  avoid  the  possibility  of  connng  under 
the  leadership  of  kings  or  emperors,  who  are  unable  to 
o-uard  the  sanctities  of  their  own  private    ives.  ^  Dis- 
establishment would  also  do  away  with  much  friction  in 
foreio-n  mission  work,  as  now  many  estimable  laborers 
are  too  strongly  tempted  to    aristocratic   bearing  and 

secular  reliances.  .  t^    .     x     4. 

There  is  a  growing  appreciation  throughout  Protestant 
Europe  of  the  need  of  developing  its  own  home  mission 
activities.     Christians  are  feeling  more  impressed  with 
the  conviction  that  their  evangelical  religion  is  not  merely 
for  their  own  personal  enjoyment.     The  preaching  is 
increasingly  spiritual  and   effective.     I  could  notice  a 
crreat  difference  from  thirteen  years  previously,  not  only 
?n  many  pulpits  in  Great  Britain  and  the  continent,  but 
also  in  the  reli-ious  press,  and  in  private  conversations. 
Had  I  not  known,  of  some  of  the  causes  which  have  con- 
spired to  this  result,  it  is  certam  I  could  not  l^^^e  failed 
to  be  impressed  with  frequent  evidences  of  a  ^i^^^^^^^^ 
relicrious  life,  and  of  a  much  more  hopeful  outlook  gen- 
erafiv  for  home  evangelization.     Many  new   ocal  organ- 
kat^ns  have  been  formed,  and  many  of  the  old  ones 
stmiothened,  for  the  purpose  of  more  effectually  carry- 


488  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ing  on  the  various  departments  of  church  work.  To 
this  upon  the  continent  have  doubtless  contributed  to  a 
very  considerable  extent  the  various  missions  from  Great 
Britain  and  America.  Especially  have  Baptists  and 
Methodists  been  multiplying  their  converts  lately  in 
Germany  and  SAveden,  an  occasion  truly  for  devout 
gratitude ;  but  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose 
that  the  evangelical  movement  of  the  past  decade  has 
been  limited  to  those  few  centres  of  religious  activity. 
It  is  a  very  general  religious  awakening.  I  have  met 
it  even  in  Munich.  The  occasion  largely  no  doubt  is 
the  reflex  influence  of  the  great  modern  foreign  mission 
enterprise,  in  which  all  Protestant  Europe  has  taken 
part.  In  our  journey ings  thus  far  around  the  world  we 
have  met  many  faithful  missionaries,  not  only  from 
England  and  Scotland,  but  also  from  Germany  and  Hol- 
land and  Scandinavia,  and  the  effect  upon  their  constit- 
uencies of  their  consecrations  and  labors,  and  the 
sympathies  and  co-operations  enlisted,  has  been  similar 
to  that  of  America's  foreign  mission  enterprise  upon 
America's  home  Christianity. 

The  rise  and  fall  of  Heidelberg,  as  coincident  with  its 
increase  and  decrease  of  loyalty  to  evangelical  doctrine, 
is  one  of  the  signs  of  the  times.  Hitzig  and  Schenkel 
and  Gass  are  almost  deserted  in  their  hostile  and  ration- 
alistic criticisms  of  Bible  truth.  The  labors  of  Julius 
Miiller  and  Tholuck  at  Halle  have  borne  much  fruit. 
Said  the  latter,  after  fifty  years'  professorship :  "  I 
came  to  Halle  to  fight  the  prevailing  rationalism.  I  am 
still  working  hard  for  the  higher  work  of  heaven.  One 
passion  —  Him  ;  only  Him."  To  such  seed  God  is  sure 
to  give  abundant  harvest.  Among  the  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  to  one  hundred  and  thirty  professors  of  the 
great  Berlin  university,  which  J.  F.  Hurst  ranks  "as  the 
centre  of  German  learning,  though  perhaps  surpassed 
by  Gottingen  in  law  and  history,  by  Vienna  in  medi- 
cine, by  Munich  in  chemistry,  by  Leipzig  in  languages, 
and  by  Halle  in  theology,"  here  are  many  laboring  faith- 
fully to  disseminate  evangelical  truth,  and  to  eradicate 
from  German  Protestantism  its  rationalism  and  formal- 


RECIPROCITY    OF   PROTESTANT   NATIONS.  489 

ism  and  infidelity .  God  has  blessed  the  work  of  Heng- 
stenberg  and  Dorner  and  Steinmeyer  and  Kleinert,  and 
many  others  of  this  cosmopolitan  seat  of  learning.  Bonn 
is  doing  much  for  the  elevating  and  purifying  of  the 
Christianity  of  Germany.  The  pen  and  voice  of  its  Theo- 
dore Christlieb  are  felt  as  a  mighty  evangelical  power, 
not  alone  throughout  Great  Britain  and  America. 

Have,  then,  British  and  American  missions  any  business 
in  continental  Protestant  Europe  ?  Yes,  indeed.  Just 
as  German  Christianity  performed  a  great  service  to 
the  common  cause  by  sending  Professor  Christlieb  to 
the  New  York  Alliance  anniversary  to  instruct  and 
stimulate  many  thousands  in  America  in  the  great 
science  of  the  warfare  with  unbelief.  Just  as  she  has 
given  us  Dr.  Philip  Schaff  to  strike  for  us  the  golden 
chords  of  christian  unity,  to  lead  us  the  most  successfully 
thus  far  through  the  tangled  labyrinths  of  Church  his- 
tory, and  largely  to  place  the  foundations  of  the  won- 
derful growth  throughout  our  country  during  the  past 
ten  years  of  interest  in  Bible  study.  The  question  is 
not  of  putting  any  of  the  sisterhood  of  Protestant 
nations  on  a  par  with  heathen  populations,  but  simply 
of  community  of  interest  and  of  obligation.  The  mis- 
sion of  Messrs.  Moody  and  Sankey  to  England  and 
Scotland  was  no  unworthy  American  assumption,  no 
intention  of  classifying  the  British  religious  situation 
alongside  that  of  the  Copts  of  Egypt  and  the  Zulus  of 
Natal.  The  fact  is  that  each  of  the  o^reat  branches 
of  the  Protestant  world,  —  Teuton,  Scandinavian,  Anglo- 
Saxon,  American,  —  has  become  intrusted,  through  the 
dispensation  of  an  all-overruling  Providence,  with  special 
graces  of  christian  character  and  special  aptitudes  for 
world  evangelization,  and  each  should  give  the  others 
the  benefit  of  its  OAvn  superiority.  We  thank  British 
Christianity  for  its  mission  to  us  of  Drs.  Hall,  McCosh, 
and  Taylor.  Where  are  the  Americans  who  were  qual- 
ified to  do  for  us  what  they  have  done  ?  Where,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  the  Englishman,  or  Scotchman,  or  Irish- 
man to  do  for  Great  Britain  what  Mr.  Moody  has  done, 
or  what  Mr.  Joseph  Cook  is  doing?     So  did  Germany 


490  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

need  the  services  of  Oncken  and  Lehmann  and  Bickel  and 
Jacoby  and  the  support  of  their  noble  missionary  bands 
by  the  American  Baptist  and  Methodist  societies.  So 
did  Sweden  and  Norwa}^  need  the  blessed  labors  of  Wy- 
berg  and  Broady  and  Johnson.  So  was  Karl  Schou 
needed  in  Denmark.  Yes,  while  great  wisdom  is 
required  in  communicating  the  benediction  of  our 
special  gifts  to  each  other  in  the  great  Protestant 
family  of  nations,  the  obligation  cannot  be  denied. 
Gratitude  alone  would  demand  its  discharge.  Let  us 
send  many  godly  and  capable  messengers  across  the 
waters  to  tell  what  we  have  learned  and  how  we  have 
learned  of  Christ.  Our  experimental  vital  Christianity 
will  do  great  good,  esjiecialty  amid  continental  Protes- 
tantism, helping  it  still  farther  out  of  its  rationalism 
and  formalism  and  indifference ;  and  in  turn  let  us 
be  ready  to  welcome  the  lessons  of  German  skill  in 
conflict  with  doubt  and  false  doctrine  for  the  1)attle  that 
is  only  beginning  to  open  upon  our  new  continent. 

One  of  the  strongest  and  most  effective  elements  of 
the  Protestantism  of  Europe  is  its  domesticity.  A  true 
christian  home  life,  so  in  contrast  with  the  herdings 
together  of  human  beings  in  heathen  and  Moslem 
worlds,  and  even  in  Greek  and  Catholic  countries,  is  a 
vast  preservative  and  influencing  power.  Even  in 
America  the  average  of  home  life,  it  must  be  confessed, 
is  not  up  to  that  which  is  characteristic  of  Protestant 
Europe.  There,  to  begin  with,  children  are  more  wel- 
come generally  than  among  us.  Parents  take  more 
pleasure  and  pride  in  large  families.  The}^  do  not 
make  sport  of  a  cluster  of  eight  or  ten  boys  and  girls  in 
a  single  home.  In  America,  the  newly-married  couple, 
as  a  rule,  desire  to  enjoy  life  for  a  few  years  in  their 
new  relations  without  any  encumbrances.  In  Protestant 
Europe  the  first-1)orn  is  not  considered  any  impediment 
to  domestic  happiness.  There  parents  and  children  are 
much  more  together  both  in  work  and  recreation.  Their 
houses  are  constructed  and  furnished  upon  the  principle 
of  the  entertainment  of  the  home  circle,  not  of  neigh- 
bors and  strangers.     It  is  by  no  means  satisfactory  to 


PECULIAR    SOIL   FOR   PECULIAR   GROWTHS.  491 

see  troops  of  German  children  following  their  parents 
to  beer-gardens,  bat  it  is  preferable  to  letting  them  run 
the  streets,  young-America  fashion,  to  the  substitution 
for  parental  guidance  of  the  haphazard  influences  of  the 
day-school  and  the  Sunday-school,  and  to  the  various 
social  high-pressure  methods  by  which  a  majority  of 
American  children  are  preternaturally  developed,  uii- 
domesticated  and  morally  corrupted.  The  moral  life  of 
Protestant  Europe  is  decidedly  in  the  advance,  chiefly 
because  more  interest  is  made  to  centre  in  and  abide  by 
the  home.  A  religious  life,  which  has  this  among  its 
foundations,  may  include  in  its  structure  much  of  for- 
malism and  rationalism  and  pride,  and  other  traces  of 
Romanism  and  infidelity,  but  nevertheless  it  is  strong, 
its  institutions  are  permanent,  its  influence  for  good 
throughout  the  world  is  assured. 

The  reaction  from  State  Churches  has  developed, 
particularly  in  England,  a  type  of  piety  among  a  con- 
siderable class,  which  is  very  strongly  disinclined  to  any 
organized  religious  effort.  Weary  with  the  pomp  and 
ceremony  of  the  Establishment,  thoroughly  alienated  by 
its  Avorldliness  and  cumbrous  political  machinery,  many 
christians  cannot  content  themselves  to  unite  with  any 
of  the  great  non-conformist  sects,  or  at  least  to  fully 
identify  with  their  home  and  foreign  evangelizing  enter- 
prises. The  salaried  minister  is  too  much  of  a  relic  of 
the  beneficed  clergyman.  Any  established  order  in 
public  Avorship  is  too  much  conformity  to  the  hated 
ritualistic  services.  Regular  collections  for  any  mis- 
sionary object  are  too  vivid  reminders  of  the  old  church 
rates.  The  formal  ordination  of  laborers  to  the  minis- 
try of  the  Gospel  at  home  or  abroad  seems  to  them  like- 
wise too  mechanical  and  human,  and  after  the  old  state 
ecclesiastical  style.  I  have  heard  them  call  these  things 
"rags  of  Popery."  This  is  the  peculiar  soil  in  Avhich 
flourish  such  growths  as  Plymouth  Brotherhood,  the 
Bristol  faith-orphanage,  the  China  Inland  Mission,  and 
many  others.  The  type  of  piety  is  not  in  advance  of 
that  which  leads  in  the  dissenting  sects  and  missions, 
nor   of  that  for  example    in  the  Established  Church, 


492  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

which  is  represented  by  the  evangelizing  activity  of  the 
Church  Missionary  Society,  only  it  is  peculiar.  It  is 
almost  always  represented  by  those  good  people,  who 
belong  to  the  material  which  generally  furnishes  the 
extremes  upon  any  political,  social,  moral  or  religious 
question.  They  form  a  constituency  as  reliable  for  any 
home  or  foreign  mission  enterprise,  which  goes  upon 
the  generally  disgusted  or  "  faith "  principle,  as  the 
Independents  or  Congregationalists  for  the  London 
Society,  or  the  Wesleyans  for  the  Wesleyan-Methodist 
Society,  or  the  Scottish  Free  Church  for  its  foreign 
mission  organization.  Let  any  good  philanthropic  or 
evangelistic  enterprise  be  started  in  England  or  Ger- 
many, and  then  let  it  be  sufficiently  advertised  as  look- 
ing to  God  instead  of  to  man  or  any  human  organiza- 
tion for  support  and  guidance,  and  there  are  thousands, 
who  stand  ready  with  their  hands  in  their  pockets  to  en- 
courage the  undertaking,  and  thus  also  give  another 
expression  of  their  profound  aversion  to  Established 
Churches,  and  any  seeming  conformity  on  the  part  of 
the  sects.  This  extreme  is  not  healthy  to  the  general 
evangelical  life,  any  more  than  its  corresponding  ex- 
treme of  High  Churchism.  From  both  well-balanced 
religious  judgment,  alike  in  the  Church  and  the  world, 
is  repelled.  The  pious  iconoclasm  will  probably  dis- 
appear with  its  antipodal  ritualism.  In  America  the 
phenomenon  can  never  be  so  conspicuous.  The  efforts 
to  transplant  have  and  must  be  largely  unsuccessful. 
The  soil  of  disestablishment  is  not  congenial. 

For  a  very  complete  enumeration  of  both  the  home 
and  foreign  missionary  forces  of  Protestant  Europe,  I 
must  refer  the  reader  to  the  appendix.  In  the  foreign 
work  are  nearly  1,200  British  and  600  continental  or- 
dained missionaries,  assisted  by  almost  15,000  native 
laborers.  What  a  sublime  spectacle  !  How  full  of  en- 
couragement !  I  have  taken  special  interest  in  the  eleven 
different  societies  for  the  conversion  of  the  Jews,  more 
particularly  that  of  the  Scottish  Free  Church,  whose  in- 
come last  year  was  nearly  $50,000.  There  is  encour- 
agement, for   over  300  converts  from  Israel  are  now 


ANGLO-SAXON   COLONIZATION.  493 

preaching  and  teaching  the  Gospel.  It  is  urged  that  on 
Jewish  Sabbaths,  Friday  evenings  and  Saturday  morn- 
ings, christians  offer  special  prayers  for  these  seven  mil- 
lions of  the  children  of  Abraham.  The  British  Sunday 
School  Union  is  pushing  its  enterprise  all  over  the  con- 
tinent. The  statistics  of  Bible  work  are  immense. 
Over  125,000,000  of  Bibles,  Testaments,  or  portions, 
have  been  circulated,  to  America's  nearly  40,000,000. 
Prominent  amono:  these  aoencies  for  world  evano-eliza- 
tion  is  Anglo-Saxon  colonization.  It  was  likewise  in 
the  early  centuries,  and  in  the  christianization  of  West- 
ern Europe.  As  again,  and  perhaps  for  the  last  time,  I 
leave  the  shores  of  Great  Britain,  it  is  with  profound 
gratitude  to  God,  that  colonists  from  this  Island 
Kingdom  have  gone  to  so  many  parts  of  the  world,  for 
Avherever  the  Anglo-Saxon  lives  in  goodly  numbers, 
there  are  sure  to  live  and  flourish  a  pure  Bible  and  a 
Biblical  Christianity. 


494  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  XXVni. 

WEST  INDIES,  SOUTH  AMERICA,  AND  OTHER  MISSION 
LANDS. 

F  our  course  was  only  a  few  points  more  to 
the  south  of  west,  we  would  in  twelve 
days,  with  a  prosperous  voyage,  reach  the 
great  archipelago  of  the  West  India  Islands. 
The  first  land  to  greet  our  eyes  might  be  San 
Salvador,  which  was  the  first  to  welcome  the 
anxious  gaze  of  Columbus  in  1492.  We 
would  not,  however,  make  the  mistake  which  he  did  in 
supposing  that  Cuba  is  a  part  of  Asia.  Among  these 
isles  and  in  the  vast  regions  beyond  of  the  southern 
continent,  Central  America  and  Mexico,  there  is  interest 
enough  to  engage  our  attention  for  many  chapters.  It  is 
really  strange  that  so  little  is  known  among  our  country- 
men about  the  other  half  of  this  western  hemisphere, 
its  natural  resources,  its  thrilling  history,  the  character 
and  capacities  of  its  populations,  and  the  general  and 
varied  social,  political,  financial  and  religious  prospects. 
What  more  interesting  than  those  early  civilizations  here 
discovered,  of  the  Toltecs  and  Aztecs  of  Mexico,  and 
of  the  Incas  of  Peru  ?  What  more  absorbing  than  the 
voluminous  records  of  Spanish,  Portuguese,  French  and 
English  discovery,  conquest  and  colonization  in  these 
lands  ?  For  the  Protestant  it  is  hardly  excusable  not  to 
be  familiar  with  the  lono^  struo^He  between  the  Catholic 
and  Protestant  Powers  of  Europe  for  the  ascendency  in 
this  new  world.  He  should  know  that  Rome  had  the 
start  of  a  century  with  every  advantage,  covering 
almost  all  lands  with  its  armed  bands  and  ambitious 
priesthood,  but  that  then  Protestantism  with  the  Bible 
and  the  family  advanced  to  the  conflict  and  to  victory. 
To  meet  the  reply  that  we  have  been  favored  with  our 


GREAT    AND    IMPARTIAL    TRIAL.  495 

soil  and  climate,  there  should  be  familiarity  with  the 
climate,  scenery  and  natural  resources  of  these  Catholic 
lands  of  this  new  world. 

Certainly  Cortez  and  Pizarro  found  a  higher  civiliza- 
tion in  Mexico  and  Peru,  than  the  Puritans  encountered 
among  the  Pequots  alid  Narragansetts  under  Canonicus 
in  Massachusetts.  The  high  table  lands  and  mountain 
ranges  of  our  sister  republic,  next  the  south,  with  the 
agricultural  and  commercial  capacities  of  its  ten  millions 
of  population,  are  evidently  being  appreciated  by  Ex- 
President  Grant  and  a  goodly  number  of  American 
capitalists.  Chiefly  through  their  exertions  a  network 
of  railways  is  covering  that  country,  and  connecting 
with  that  of  the  United  States.  New  lines  of  steam 
navigation  are  multiplying  its  means  of  communication 
upon  the  Atlantic,  the  Gulf,  and  the  Pacific.  The  suc- 
cession of  General  Gonzalez  to  the  Presidency  was 
peaceful,  noting  the  end  of  revolutions  and  anarchy  — 
we  hope.  The  five  Central  American  republics,  with  a 
two  millions  population,  have  a  healthy  and  delightful 
climate  in  the  interior  beyond  the  coasts.  South 
America  has  a  more  fertile  soil,  and  on  the  whole  is 
more  favoralile  to  a  high  civilization  than  the  northern 
division  of  our  hemisphere.  We  have  no  wooded 
country  to  compare  with  the  vast  "  selvas "  or  forest 
plains  of  the  Amazon.  The  country  of  the  Argentine 
Confederation,  drained  by  the  La  Plata,  is  naturally  as 
rich  as  our  Mississippi  Yalley,  and  has  a  more  moderate 
climate  both  in  winter  and  summer.  Its  "  pampas  "  or 
treeless  plains  are  covered  with  a  heavier  growth  than 
our  prairies.  Peru  and  Bolivia  are  probably  as  rich  in 
silver  as  our  Nevada.  If  there  are  no  gold  fields  equal 
to  California,  there  are  the  copper  mines  of  Chili,  and 
the  diamonds  of  Brazil.  This  continent  is  rich  also  in 
its  india-rubber,  caoutchouc,  its  cinchona  quinine,  its 
cofiee,  sugar,  and  other  productions,  and  its  vast  herds 
of  cattle.  Verily  Providence  has  furnished  to  Roman 
Catholicism  a  noble  continent,  on  which  to  plant  its 
colonies,  and  multiply  to  a  great  population,  and  stand 
trial  along-side  Protestant  civilization  in  this  new  world. 


496  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Nearly  all  the  territory,  from  the  Eio  Grande  to 
Terra  del  Fuego,  is  under  the  control  of  the  Papacy. 
Deducting  perhaps  two  millions  of  Protestants  in  the 
West  Indies,  and  in  connection  with  the  missions  scat- 
tered throughout  Mexico  and  Central  and  South  America, 
and  presuming  that  a  third  of  the  population  are  pagan, 
of  the  total  26,000,000  there  remain  nearly  16,000,000 
Eoman  Catholics,  mostly  of  Spanish  descent.  We  see  the 
wisdom  of  God  in  placing  chiefly  the  Spanish  type  of 
Roman  Catholicism  on  the  trial  of  the  centuries  in  this 
new  world.  The  Vatican  itself  even  to  this  day  being 
judge,  Romanism  is  thus  the  most  fully  and  fairly  repre- 
sented. The  treaty  of  Utrecht  in  1713  left  the  French 
colonies  unsupported  in  their  conflicts  with  the  English, 
and  providentially  they  were  swept  away,  for  not  only 
was  the  feudalism  they  were  endeavoring  to  transplant 
an  anachronism,  but  their  church  missions  seem  to  have 
caught  too  much  of  the  awakening  religious  life  of  the 
north  of  Europe  to  be  qualified,  for  the  clearly  marked 
rivalry  with  Protestantism.  Spain  sent  no  such  men 
—  it  is  doubtful  if  she  had  them  to  send  —  as  Marquette, 
Brebeuf,  and  Father  Rale,  who  labored,  not  as  mere 
coercive  tools  in  the  hands  of  colonial  secular  power,  not 
to  smooth  the  pathway  of  greed  and  tyranny  and  lust, 
but  to  elevate  the  social  life  of  the  aborigines,  to  give 
them  the  light  of  Christianity,  and  to  be  faithful  spirit- 
ual guides  to  the  colonies.  Everywhere  the  character, 
spirit  and  methods  of  the  Spaniards  were  in  decided 
contrast,  save  temporarily  in  part  in  the  Jesuit  missions 
in  Paraguay  and  California.  Bartholomew  de  las  Casas 
in  his  labor  among  the  Indians  was  also  exceptional. 
The  Spanish  method  was  coercion  and  easy  accommoda-  ■ 
tion  to  native  pagan  superstitions.  Even  the  French 
Marquette  permitted  the  Ojibways  to  continue  human 
sacrifices. 

True  to  their  instincts,  the  Catholic  Spaniards  estab- 
lished their  inquisitions  in  Mexico,  Peru,  Brazil  and 
elsewhere.  No  doubt  they  were  equally  sanguinary  with 
the  pattern  auto-da-fe  in  their  fatherland.  Llorente, 
secretary  to  the  Holy  Office  of  the  Inquisition  in  Spain, 


THE    INQUISITION    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD.  497 

left  this  on  record :  ''  To  calculate  the  number  of  vic- 
tims of  the  Inquisition  were  to  give  palpable  proof  of  one 
of  the  most  powerful  and  active  causes  of  the  depopulation 
of  Spain  ;  for  if  to  several  millions  of  inhabitants  of 
which  the  inquisitorial  system  has  deprived  this  king- 
dom by  the  total  expulsion  of  the  Jews  and  the  con- 
quered Moors,  we  add  about  500,000  families  entirely 
destroyed  by  the  executions  of  the  Holy  Office,  it  will 
be  proved  l)eyond  a  doul^t,  that  had  it  not  been  for  this 
tribunal,  and  the  influence  of  its  maxims,  Spain  would 
possess  12,000,000  souls  above  her  present  population." 
St.  Hilaire,  the  Avell  known  Catholic  author,  has  only  praise 
for  the  expulsions  at  least,  for  he  writes  :  "  Let  it  not  be 
said  that  Spain,  in  thus  depriving  herself  of  her  most 
active  citizens,  was  not  aware  of  the  extent  of  her  loss. 
All  her  historians  concur  in  the  statement  that,  in 
acting  thus,  she  sacrificed  her  temporal  interests  to  her 
religious  convictions  ;  and  all  are  at  a  loss  for  words  to 
extol  such  a  glorious  sacrifice."  If  this  was  the  prevail- 
ing religious  spirit  at  home,  it  could  not  be  expected  to 
be  less  ferocious  and  infernal  throughout  the  Spanish 
colonies  of  the  new  world.  The  treatment  the  abo- 
rio^ines  of  the  North  have  received  from  Enoflish 
Protestants  has  ])een  bad  enough,  but  then  it  has  chiefly 
been  the  eflfect  of  wars  kindled  by  French  and  Spanish 
intrigues  throughout  our  continent ;  while  the  numerous 
colonies  of  Spain  were  left  almost  entirely  alone  by  Euro- 
pean powers  to  follow  out  their  own  inclinations,  from 
Cuba  to  Chili  and  from  Mexico  to  Buenos  Ayres.  Nearly 
everywhere  they  were  received  in  the  most  friendly 
spirit  by  the  natives,  but  they  responded  with  tyrannical 
greed  and  brutal  fanaticism,  and  over  the  graves  of  many 
millions  of  the  tortured  and  the  murdered  they  have 
erected  the  structure  of  Roman  Catholic  barbarism, 
which  disgraces  to-day  the  fairest  portion  of  this  west- 
ern world.  As  the  late  Dr.  H.  B.  Smith  of  the  New 
York  Union  Theological  Seminary  testified :  "  The 
form  of  faith  established  in  the  West  Indies  and  Cen- 
tral and  South  America  was  a  degradation  of  Christian- 
ity ;  it  hardly  elevated  the  natives,  and  it  debased  the 
colonists." 


498  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

To  jvppreciate  the  situation,  which  evangelical 
missions  -ire  encountering  to-day  in  these  lands,  we 
need  to  lake  into  account  the  heritage  of  serfage  and 
slavery,  or  the  cruel  oppression  of  the  Indian  natives, 
and  the  horrible  treatment  of  the  imported  African 
negroes.  The  aboriginal  races  were  much  more  mild 
and  docile  than  those  with  which  the  English  and 
French  colonists  came  into  contact  and  collision.  Upon 
them  the  wild  reckless  conquerors  piled  the  most  crush- 
ing burdens,  killing  by  the  enforced  severity  of  their 
labors  a  much  larger  number  than  by  gunpowder  and 
the  sword.  The  natives  were  so  impressed  by  the  can- 
non, and  cavalry,  and  personal  appearance  of  the  Span- 
iards and  Portuguese,  that  they  considered  them  as  gods 
in  human  shape,  whose  will  it  was  vain  to  attempt  to 
resist.  The  Mexicans  showed  great  bravery,  but  gen- 
erally the  aborigines  were  very  timid,  and  they  had  no 
weapons  of  iron.  The  Pharaohs  were  not  harder  task- 
masters over  the  Egyptian  masses  and  the  captive 
Israelites,  than  were  these  European  Catholics  over  the 
native  Indians,  who  in  the  beginning  numbered  more 
possibly  than  the  entire  population  of  those  lands  to-day. 
They  forced  them  in  immense  droves  to  cultivate  their 
soil,  to  work  their  gold  and  silver  mines,  and  to  carry 
their  loads  as  beasts  of  burden.  The  unchecked 
avarice  and  severity  of  the  heartless  conquerors  rapidly 
diminished  the  population.  Millions  of  the  various 
copper-colored  races  were  swept  away  as  by  a  frightful 
epidemic.  The  growing  scarcity  of  laborers  suggested 
the  enforced  importation  of  the  more  robust  negroes 
from  Africa.  And  hence  arose  the  horrible  slave  trade 
and  the  general  introduction  of  a  black  slave  population. 
Terrible  as  was  this  curse  in  the  British  colonies,  and  in 
our  Southern  States,  up  to  the  proclamation  of  emanci- 
pation, it  was  far  surpassed  in  cruelty,  in  wretchedness 
and  frightful  mortality  in  the  regions  beyond.  Prob- 
ably over  20,000,000  of  African  slaves  were  provided  to 
meet  the  failing  supply  of  the  native  Indian  serfs. 

Though  anticipated  by  various  anti-slavery  move- 
ments   in    our   American    colonies    and    states,   Great 


America's  lead  in  abolition  of  slave-trade.    499 

Britain's  lead  in  the  abolishing  of  the  slave  trade  seventy- 
four  years  ago,  and  her  extinction  of  slavery  thirty 
years  subsequently  in  her  West  India  colonies,  as  well 
as  in  all  her  other  possessions  throughout  the  world, 
prepared  the  way  for  a  considerable  amelioration  in  the 
condition  of  the  serf  and  slave  populations  of  the  Span- 
ish American  countries.  Congress,  in  1774,  reproached 
George  III.  for  his  encouragement  of  negro  importa- 
tion ;  and  in  our  Constitution  of  1787  Jefferson  endeav- 
ored to  have  an  article  condemning  slavery,  but  his 
purpose  was  thwarted  by  a  majority  of  one  vote. 
Gradually  i\Iassachusetts,  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island, 
New  York,  New  Jersey,  New  Hampshire,  and  Pennsyl- 
vania freed  themselves  of  the  curse.  In  seven  of  them 
the  extinction  was  virtual  before  1820.  The  British 
move  for  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade  was  in  1807, 
thirteen  years  after  our  Congress  had  passed  a  prohibit- 
ory bill.  The  joint  fleets  were  only  partially  successful 
in  breaking  up  the  African  supply,  especially  for  the 
Spanish  American  slave  markets.  Spain  and  Portugal 
encouraged  the  traffic,  and  their  South  American  colo- 
nies, having  renounced  their  allegiance  to  the  European 
states,  amid  the  confusion  of  Ferdinand  YII.,  w^ere 
pursuing  their  independent  policies  of  slave  enterprise. 
But  under  the  increased  difficulties  of  the  inhuman 
African  trade,  and  the  rapidly  advancing  cost  of  slave 
labor,  agricultural  and  commercial  prosperity  was  dis- 
appearing. The  lands  were  all  hastening  to  ruin.  No 
more  burdens  could  ])e  placed  upon  the  aboriginal  rem- 
nants ;  they  would  only  perish  the  more  rapidly. 
Negroes  were  beginning  to  cost  so  much  in  the  growing 
scarcity  that,  like  high-priced  horses,  they  demanded 
better  care  and  more  expensive  keeping.  Thus  interest 
on  such  investments  shrunk,  until  capital  fled  from  all  the 
productive  industries,  in  which  of  course  the  ruling 
races  considered  it  beneath  themselves  to  take  any  part 
except  as  overseers.  The  improved  treatment  of  slave 
property,  prompted  not  by  humane  but  l)y  simply  finan- 
cial considerations,  contributed  to  the  reawakening  of  a 
desire  for  freedom  on  the  part  of  the   slave  and  serf 


500  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

populations.  This  new  restlessness  joined  with  the 
o-eiieral  extreme  business  distress,  in  still  further  com- 
plicating the  situation. 

The  statesmanship  of  England  saw  the  inevitable  drift. 
Emancipation  was  the  only  rescue  of  her  West  India 
colonies  from  complete  ruin.  I  know  of  the  heroic  per- 
severance of  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson  and  Sharp  and 
Buxton  and  others,  to  arouse  the  British  public  and  Par- 
liament not  only  to  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  but 
also  to  the  complete  destruction  of  slavery  itself.  I 
would  gladly  give  them  and  their  philanthropic  Christi- 
anity all  the  honor  of  the  emancipation  act  of  1833, 
even  as  does  the  French  academician  Cochin,  as  also  Dr. 
Underbill  of  London,  in  his  paper  l)efore  the  Mildmay 
Conference.  The  latter,  referring  to  the  British  deliv- 
erance of  the  slaves,  expresses  the  judgment,  that  "  In 
the  determination  to  bring  their  long  agony  to  a  close, 
all  considerations  as  to  the  effect  of  emancipation  on  the 
commercial  and  material  prosperity  of  the  West  Indies 
w^ere  deemed  of  little  moment."  Would  God  it  was 
so  ;  but  such  does  not  appear  to  be  the  historical  record. 
Lord  Stanhope,  the  Colonial  Secretary,  announced  just 
before  the  emancipation,  that  "the  security  of  the  colo- 
nies permitted  no  longer  hesitation."  Had  their  secur- 
ity, commercial  and  political,  permitted  hesitation,  there 
would  not  have  remained  sufficient  public  opinion  in 
favor  of  the  righteous  deed,  which  struck  the  fetters 
from  800,000  slaves  at  a  cost  of  $100,000,000.  British 
interests  would  have  continued  to  triumph  over  christian 
principles,  as  they  did  a  generation  later  in  the  enthu- 
siastic moral  and  material  support  given  to  the  Ameri- 
can slaveholders'  rebellion,  whose  corner-stone  its  vice- 
president  declared  to  be  African  slavery. 

Alas,  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  too  much 
selfishness  yet  even  in  the  most  advanced  Protestant 
Christian  nations,  to  consider  as  mere  matters  of  princi- 
ple such  great  questions  as  slavery  and  intemperance  and 
licentiousness.  The  almighty  overruling  power  of  God 
is  as  yet  their  ultimate  solution.  The  leaven  of  the 
Christ-truth  and  the  Christ-life  must  yet  work  on  for 


"man's  extremity  —  god's  oppoetunity."      501 

many  years,  before  Congress,  Parliament,  or  Eeichstag 
can  be  trusted  to  act  upon  great  moral  questions  inde- 
pendently of  the  political  and  financial  interests  in- 
volved. So  it  came  to  pass  in  the  British  West  Indies 
first  of  all,  even  as  since  in  the  southern  half  of  the 
American  Union  and  in  Russia,  "  man's  extremity  was 
God's  opportunity.  "  The  slaves  and  the  serfs  did  not 
secure  their  own  freedom  or  the  amelioration  of  their 
condition,  nor  did  their  masters  give  it  to  them.  God 
gave  it.  The  result  is  an  unspeakal^le  l)lessing,  every- 
where gradually  manifesting  itself.  Mr.  Charles  Buxton, 
in  his  volume  upon  the  West  Indies,  testifies:  ''Under 
slavery  and  monopoly  the  owners  of  the  soil  were  re- 
duced to  the  greatest  distress.  The  laljoring  class  was 
miserable,  and  was  perishing  miserably.  Slavery  and 
monopoly  were  l^earing  the  West  Indies  to  ruin.  Under 
free  labor  and  free  trade  they  are  rising  to  great  wealth. 
Not  only  are  the  former  slaves  enjoying  a  degree  of  com- 
fort and  independence  almost  unparalleled,  l^ut  our  own 
trade  with  these  islands  is  becomino'  of  hiij-her  and  his^h- 
er  value."  The  number  of  the  population  has  increased 
nearly  a  quarter.  The  example  had  its  efiect  through- 
out the  Spanish  colonies,  as  also  in  the  Dutch  and 
French  possessions.  They  had  not  equal  intelligence 
to  grapple  with  the  labor  prol)lem,  nor  had  they  a  pow- 
erful influence  of  philanthropic  agitation  l:»ehind  them. 
But  the  necessity  increased,  and  the  British  example 
helped  them  the  more  quickly  along  the  line  of  the  in- 
evitable. In  many  of.  the  countries  slavery  has  been 
entirely  abolished  as  a  matter  of  legal  form,  as  in 
Mexico  and  Chili,  while  a  gradual  process  of  abolition 
is  ffoino^  on  in  other  lands  as  in  Brazil  and  Cuba. 

But  the  general  situation  after  all  is  that  only  of 
a  partial  amelioration.  It  is  one  thing  to  adopt  eman- 
cipation laws  ;  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  really  free  a 
vast  servile  and  degraded  population.  T3a-anny  and 
slavery  survive  all  legislation.  The  Indian  and  the  Negro 
have  actually  as  yet  little  more  than  the  care  and  atten- 
tion bestowed  upon  property.  The  Spanish- American 
ruling  classes  consider  them  as  having  simply  come  under 


502  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

new  rules  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals.  A 
purely  economic  and  heartless  policy  still  holds  sway. 
Yery  little  eiFort  is  made  to  educate  and  elevate  the 
labor  classes.  Beyond  those  whose  blood  is  largely 
mingled  with  that  of  the  conquering  races,  hardly  any 
civilizing  influences  are  attempted  in  earnest  except  by 
the  efforts  of  Protestant  missions.  Government  schools 
are  under  the  control  of  the  most  io^norant  and  dee^raded 
ranks  of  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood  to  be  found  in 
the  whole  world.  Isfnorance  and  coercion  are  still  their 
main  reliance  for  the  support  of  their  religious  sj'stem. 
So  vigorously  are  they  still  pressing  such  policy  even  in 
Brazil,  that  they  overawe  both  the  progressive  Emperor 
and  the  lil^eral  Parliament.  The  latter  is  reported  to 
have  taken  the  ground,  "  that  the  compulsory  adherence 
to  its  support  and  its  worship,  Avhich  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church  has  heretofore  demanded,  should  not  for  the 
present  be  discontinued."  In  Chili  the  situation  is  a 
little  more  encouraging.  Freedom  of  thought  is  largely 
on  the  increase,  despite  the  l)igotry  and  intolerance  of 
the  priesthood.  The  Protestant  movement  is  still  of 
small  proportions,  because  of  the  unremitting  surveil- 
lance and  social  persecution  sure  to  follow  all  who 
identify  themselves  with  it ;  but  the  popular  mind  is  in 
ferment.  The  masses  are  asking  questions,  and  leaders 
of  thought  are  seekino^  for  lioht  in  other  lands.  The 
war  with  Peru  and  Bolivia  is  accelerating  this  intel- 
lectual activity.  In  Mexico  the  prospect  is  especially 
hopeful  of  the  near  approach  of  li))erty  of  thought  and 
general  intelligence.  Mexican  statesmen  are  recogniz- 
ing that  these  are  essential  to  their  national  stabihty. 
And  there  is  beino-  manifested  anions^  the  lower  classes 
a  disposition  to  In^eak  from  the  restraints  of  priestcraft, 
and  to  become  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name  free  and  inde- 
pendent citizens  of  the  republic.  In  Uruguay,  Buenos 
Ayres,  Argentine  Interior,  and  Paraguay  there  is  a  pre- 
vailing spirit  of  unrest  among  the  masses,  and  the 
popular  leaders  are  more  earnestly  and  candidly  inquir- 
ing over  and  beyond  the  heads  of  the  priesthood. 

Indeed,  in  all  these  lands  between  the  Gulf  and  the 


EVANGELIZATION    IN    BillilSH    WEST    INDIES.        503 

Cape  the  present  situation  is  as  hopeful  as  can  be 
expected,  until  there  is  mingled  with  it  a  mucli  larger 
element  of  Protestant  mission  influence.  The  civil 
power  of  even  Great  Britain  could  not  do  for  tiie  Eng- 
lish West  Indies  what  has  Ijeen  accomplished  upon  those 
islands  by  direct  evangelizing  agencies.  The  course  of 
secular  events  in  the  hands  of  an  overrulino^  Providence 
can  bring  about  emancipation,  and  by  the  enforcement 
of  economic  laws  efiect  the  amelioration  of  the  condition 
of  downtrodden  populations.  Wars  can  establish  lib- 
erties, as  well  as  destroy  them.  Political  and  commercial 
movements  may  largely  awaken  the  intellectual  life  of  a 
people,  and  drive  both  high  and  low  into  the  field  of 
inquiry.  But  then,  there  are  needed  light  and  moral 
power  from  without,  or  the  fermentation  of  thought  will 
die  away,  darker  and  grosser  superstitions  will  ultimate- 
ly prevail,  and  the  liberties  secured  will  vanish  in  the 
presence  of  other  and  equally  merciless  tyrannies.  As 
the  physician's  skill  and  medicines  have  their  limit  with 
all  the  diseases  of  the  human  body,  so  has  the  best  civil- 
ization on  earth  with  any  diseased  body-politic.  At  its 
limit  the  light  and  moral  power  of  God  in  Christianity 
must  come,  or  the  treatment  is  unsuccessful,  and  often 
it  had  been  better  to  allow  nature  to  have  run  its 
course. 

The  Christian  Mission  enterprise,  especially  of  English 
churches,  is  rescuing  the  new  civilization  of  the  British 
West  Indies  from  disaster  and  ruin.  It  is  softening  the 
hearts  of  the  ruling  classes,  and  fitting  the  common 
laborers  for  their  freedom  and  advancement.  It  is 
overcoming  strong  class  prejudices,  and  substituting 
the  sentiments  of  a  common  brotherhood  for  the  old 
feelings  between  master  and  slave.  It  is  inculcating 
moral  principles,  and  elevating  the  social  life.  Before 
emancipation  the  most  degrading  lusts  and  superstitions 
prevailed.  Fetichism  chiefly  was  the  negro's  religion. 
Marriage  was  almost  unknown  among  the  laboring 
classes,  and  concubinage  was  the  rule  in  the  homes 
of  the  masters.  The  instruction  of  slaves  was  rendered 
practically  impossible.     iMinisters  were  imprisoned  and 


504  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

fined  $100  for  every  slave  who  had  been  counted  in 
their  congregations.  Even  to  the  close  of  the  appren- 
ticeship of  1838  it  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that 
the  missionaries  in  the  towns  could  gain  any  access 
to  the  laboring  populations.  The  most  horril^le  cruel- 
ties were  inflicted  upon  those,  who  Avere  found  meeting 
together  for  the  worship  of  God  in  their  forest  recesses 
and  mountain  caves.  The  act  of  emancipation  and  the 
ordinary  influences  of  even  British  civilization  were 
powerless  to  liquidate  all  this  vast  estate  of  tyranny, 
hatred,  degradation  and  woe.  Indeed,  from  them  too 
much  was  expected  at  first,  and  a  very  severe  lesson 
of  their  weakness  and  inadequacy  had  to  be  learned. 
The  leaven  of  Christianity  was  needed,  and  it  alone 
could  suffice.  There  remained  all  the  pride  and  im- 
purity and  ignorance  and  selfishness.  Emancipation 
only  altered  the  phases  of  their  manifestation,  and  the 
various  appliances  of  civilization  simply  off'ered  more  or 
less  temporary  amelioration.  Cure  came  with  the 
message  of  the  Gospel,  brought  chiefly  by  the  lips  and 
the  lives  of  the  missionaries.  Before  their  influences, 
under  God's  blessing,  prejudices  have  been  giving  way, 
resentments  have  been  extinguished,  fraternities  of  feel- 
ing have  been  created,  homes  have  been  established, 
manhood  and  womanhood  have  been  restored,  schools 
have  been  opened,  and  a  public  sentiment  formed  in 
support  of  all  the  advantages  gained,  and  desirous  of 
still  farther  improvement. 

For  a  long  time  subsequent  to  emancipation  Christian 
Missions  had  to  carry  the  load  of  general  education  in 
the  British  West  Indies.  The  Assembly  of  Jamaica, 
legislating  for  a  half  million  population,  was  for 
many  years  so  swayed  by  the  old  slave-masters'  spirit, 
that  only  an  annual  appropriation  of  less  than  $7,000 
could  be  secured  for  general  educational  purposes.  The 
few  endowed  schools  were  accessible  only  to  the  children 
of  the  whites.  It  was  generally  realized  that  free  labor 
was  proving  a  decided  advantage  to  business  interests, 
and  a  majority  of  the  white  population  ten  years  after 
emancipation  could  not  have  been  persuaded  to  vote  in 


THE    HARVEST   IN   AMERICA.  505 

favor  of  the  restoration  of  slavery,  and  yet  the  fallacy 
continued  to  prevail  of  the  superiority  of  uneducated- 
labor.  Next  to  the  schooh^oom,  it  was  thought,  were 
the  social  circle  and  the  family  of  the  white  race,  with 
no  remaining  barrier  to  the  dreaded  amalgamation. 
The  poor  and  illiterate  whites  especially  were  hostile  to 
the  education  of  the  blacks.  It  would  destroy  their 
monopoly  of  overseership.  The  negroes  then  could 
furnish  their  own  superintendents,  better  qualified  and 
at  less  price.  But  against  all  such  obstacles  the  almighty 
power  of  pure  christian  truth  gradually  worked  its  way 
successfully.  Scores  of  mission  schools  introduced  to 
society  hundreds  of  colored  youth,  civilized,  christian- 
ized, educated.  They  did  not  therefore  invade  the 
sanctities  of  the  white  man's  home,  nor  ignore  the 
social  lines  of  race  distinction.  A  delicate  sense  of 
propriety  and  a  taste  for  congeniality  took  the  place  of 
the  former  barriers  of  ignorance  and  degradation.  And 
it  was  found  that  the  secular  and  religious  training,  so  far 
from  unfitting  for  work,  did  more  even  than  emancipation 
to  overcome  natural  indolence,  to  inculcate  fidelity  and 
honesty,  and  to  make  all  kinds  of  necessary  labor  enjoy- 
able and  profitable.  These  evangelizing  and  educational 
centres  and  their  immediate  results  have  so  moulded 
public  opinion,  that  now  a  common  school  system  is 
supported  from  government  funds  at  an  annual  expense 
of  nearly  $200,000.  In  Jamaica  there  are  almost  six 
hundred  day  schools  with  50,000  scholars,  and  in  all 
the  British  West  Indies  1,200  schools  with  upwards  of 
80,000  in  attendance.  Christian  Missions  sowed  the 
seed,  of  wdiich  this  is  a  part  of  the  harvest.  And  a 
corresponding  record  may  ba  confidently  expected  in  the 
other  islands  of  the  AVest  Indies  and  throughout  Central 
and  South  America,  in  proportion  as  evangelizing  labor 
is  provided  by  the  Christian  Church.  In  these  other 
lands,  it  is  true,  there  are  special  obstacles  because  of  the 
Spanish  race  influence,  and  the  extraordinarily  bigoted 
and  ignorant  Papist  domination,  but  it  is  also  true  that 
the  example  in  the  neighboring  British  colonies  and  in 
the  great  Protestant  Republic  is  exerting  a  j)owerful  in- 


506  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

fluence  in  favor  of  human  rights,  religious  liberty,  and 
general  education. 

Among  the  earliest  missions  were  those  of  the 
Moravians  to  the  Indians  of  Mosquito  coast  in  Nicaragua, 
and  to  the  negroes  of  Surinam  (Dutch  Guiana).  They 
have  nearly  23,000  adherents,^  and  are  performing  valu- 
able work  also  amono-  the  Chinese  and  East  India 
coolies,  who  are  emigrating  in  large  and  increasmg 
numbers  not  only  into  the  neighborhood  of  their 
stations,  but  also  into  Chili,  Brazil,  Cuba,  Mexico  and 
other  lands.  The  ^Moravians  have  missions  also  in  the 
English  and  Danish  West  Indies,  with  36,000  converts, 
and  a  flourishing  theological  seminary  at  Fairfield, 
Jamaica.  The  Propagation  Society  of  the  English 
Church  has  eight  Dioceses  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Caribbean  Sea,  with  about  20,000  adherents.  Its  work 
among  the  many  thousand  coolie  laborers  in  British 
Guiana  and  Trinidad  is  especially  interesting.  The 
Wesleyans  in  the  Antigua,  St.  Vincent,  Guiana,  Jamaica, 
Honduras,  Bahamas,  and  Hayti  districts  number  one  hun- 
dred and  six  missionaries,  86,082  communicants,  and 
report  139,152  regular  attendants  on  public  worship. 
There  are  in  addition  a  num]:)er  of  Anglican  and  Wes- 
leyan  churches  among  the  Europeans.  The  English 
Baptist  West  Indian  Mission  numl:)ers  27,839  in  com- 
munion, the  Congregationalist  London  Mission  5,150, 
the  Scotch  United" Presbyterian  6,691,  the  United  Meth- 
odist Free  Church  and  Church  of  Scotland  together 
reporting  nearly  3,000  more.  The  American  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  Mission  is  well  represented  by  Bishop 
Holly  in  Hayti.  He  is  assisted  by  ten  clergymen,  and 
reports  nearly  three  hundred  communicants.  The 
progress  of  self-support  among  the  native  churches  is 
encouraging,  as  is  also  the  preparation  and  trial  of 
a  native  ministry. 

The  Episcopalian  Mission  to  Mexico  is  encouraged 
with  3,500  memliers  and  3,500  other  attendants.  There 
are  three  Bishops,  with  seventy-four  assistants,  and 
twenty-six  students  in  the  Theological  Seminary.  The 
American    Methodist    and    Presbyterian    Missions    in 


THE    ADVANCE   IN   MEXICO.  507 

Mexico  are  attracting  a  great  deal  of  hopeful  attention. 
The  former  sustains  eight  missionaries  with  eleven  assist- 
ants, and  reports  three  hundred  and  thirty-seven  mem- 
bers, three  hundred  and  ninety-eight  probationers,  and 
1098  regular  attendants  on  Sunday  worship.  The  latter 
has  seven  ordained  missionaries  with  ten  assistants,  and 
numbers  3,900  converts.  Its  southern  field  has  been 
especially  blest  the  last  year.  "Over  eight  hundred 
have  been  added  to  the  churches,  and  all  accounts  — 
whether  from  missionaries  or  from  tourists  or  foreign 
residents  in  Mexico-^  have  as^reed  in  attestino^  the 
genuineness  and  eminently  spiritual  character  of  the 
work."  Upon  the  western  coast  the  A.  B.  C.  F.  M. 
has  one  station.  The  American  Baptist  Home  Mission 
Society  is  reopening  its  Mexican  work.  The  American 
Presbyterians  in  Colombia,  Brazil  and  Chili  are  faith- 
fully engaged  in  foundation  work.  Their  six  mission- 
aries with  sixteen  assistants  should  be  largely  reinforced. 
Their  stations  are  excellently  located  to  meet  the  rising 
tide  of  intellectual  and  religious  interest.  The  Method- 
ist missions  in  Uruguay  and  Buenos  Ayres  occupy 
most  inviting  fields  for  evangelizing  enterprise.  They 
report  five  missionaries  with  three  assistants,  and  four 
hundred  and  ninety-five  members  and  probationers.  A 
much  larger  number  of  Spanish  communities  are 
cordially  inviting,  than  they  are  able  with  their  limited 
resources  to  occupy.  The  London  South  American 
Society  has  stationed  laborers  upon  the  Amazon,  in  the 
Falkland  Islands,  in  Terra  del  Fuego,  and  in  Patagonia. 
The  Falkland  mission  has  become  an  important  base  for 
continental  evangelizing  work.  The  Baptists  of  our 
Southern  States  are  also  represented  in  both  Mexico 
and  Brazil. 

Turning  for  a  moment  to  British  North  America,  w^e 
find  an  immense  territory,  larger  than  the  Chinese  em- 
pire, and  destined  to  contain  a  vast  population.  Nearly 
half  of  its  present  4,000,000  of  inhabitants  are  Koman 
Catholics,  occupying  in  intelligence  and  virtue  about  the 
middle  ground  between  our  own  Catholic  fellow-citizens 
and  the  degraded  Papists  of  South  America.     Among 


508  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

them  there  have  been  several  encouraging  missions. 
The  Protestant  portion  of  the  "  Dominion  of  Canada," 
with  its  many  well-sustained  churches,  and  educational  in- 
stitutions, and  home  and  foreign  missions,  is  an  element 
of  strength  in  the  Church  Universal.  The  Propagation 
Society  sustains  here  the  large  force  of  225  missionaries. 
The  Wesley ans  have  many  faithful  missionaries  scattered 
among  the  fishing  villages  of  Newfoundland  and  various 
Indian  tribes.  They  speak  hopefully  of  their  work 
among  the  French  Canadian  Catholics.  But  attention 
is  specially  arrested  by  the  evangelizing  enterprise  of 
the  Church  Missionary  Society  among  the  100,000 
Indian  population.  Most  of  these  red  tribes,  like  those 
of  our  territories,  have  vague  notions  of  a  hereafter, 
and  of  a  Great  Spirit  who  is  Supreme  Being,  but  their 
actual  worship  is  given  to  inferior  spirits,  called 
"  Okas,"  or  "^  Manitous."  Among  them,  scattered  from 
Quebec  to  the  Pacific,  and  as  far  north  as  near  where 
our  own  Alaska  touches  the  Arctic  Ocean,  this  so- 
ciety has  located  24  mission  stations,  with  18  mission- 
aries and  23  assistants.  They  enroll  11,622  native 
christians,  and  in  their  25  schools,  1,098  scholars. 

Their  most  interesting  station  is  at  Metlakahtla,  near 
Fort  Simpson,  upon  the  Pacific  coast  of  British  Co- 
lumbia. When  in  1857  William  Duncan  was  located 
among  these  Tsimsheans,  his  task  seemed  as  hopeless 
as  when  the  explorer  Hudson  was  cast  adrift  by  the 
mutineers.  He  found  2,300  of  the  most  blood-thirsty 
savages.  Physically  a  superior  tribe,  they  yet  seemed 
to  have  sunken  lower  than  all  others  in  wretchedness 
and  crime.  Soon  after  the  "fire- water"  was  introduced 
by  the  Victoria  miners,  and  a  reign  of  terror  began. 
But  the  missionary  felt  that  Christianity  was  equal  to 
even  such  a  situation  of  unparalleled  horrors,  and  he 
kept  to  work.  By  1862  he  had  influenced  some  fifty 
to  a  better  life,  and  with  them  formed  a  new  settlement 
a  few  miles  distant.  Now  over  a  thousand  are  gathered 
there  about  him,  in  well-built  cottages,  with  the  largest 
church  edifice  north  of  San  Francisco,  the  Sabbath  kept, 
all  the  children  at  school,  every  citizen  in  health  at- 


"with  god  all  things  ake  possible."       509 

tending  divine  worship,  a  store,  a  market  house,  a  saw- 
mill, a  blacksmith's  shop,  and  large  carpenter-shops 
and  work-sheds.  They  have  also  their  own  schooner, 
in  which  they  carry  on  their  trade  with  Victoria.  No 
intoxicating  drink  is  allowed  in  the  community.  This 
prosperous,  well-ordered  christian  settlement  shows 
what  evangelization  can  do  for  the  worst  possible 
creatures  under  the  utmost  possible  embarrassments. 
Triumphs  of  Christianity  hardl}^  less  wonderful  are  re- 
corded among  the  Moravian  and  Danish  missions  to  the 
Esquimaux  of  Greenland,  Labrador,  and  all  along  the 
continent  to  Behring's  Straits. 

"  Let  the  Indian,  let  the  Negro, 

Let  the  rude  barbarian  see 
That  divine  and  glorious  conquest, 

Once  obtained  on  Calvary ; 
Let  the  Gospel 
Loud  resound  from  pole  to  pole. 

"  Fly  abroad,  thou  mighty  Gospel, 

Win  and  conquer,  never  cease ; 
May  thy  lasting,  wide  dominion 

Multiply  and  still  increase ; 
Sway  thy  sceptre, 
Saviour,  all  the  world  around!" 


610  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

ATLANTIC  REFLECTIONS. 

UE  steamship  of  this  my  37th  ocean  voyage 
is  superior  in  size  and  accommodations  to 
any  I  have  ever  seen,  save  the  Great 
Eastern.  It  is  the  "  City  of  Berlin,"  of  the 
Inman  Line,  Captain  Kennedy,  the  Com- 
modore of  the  fleet,  commanding.  She  is 
520  feet  long,  of  5,500  tonnage,  her  saloon 
amidships,  the  staterooms  large  and  comfortal:>le  (weather 
permitting),  ventilation  perfect,  electric  bells  and  lights, 
and  the  order  and  discipline  everywhere  fully  equal  to 
a  Cunarder.  We  have  the  choice  of  all  the  staterooms, 
thanks  to  our  friends  Mr.  and  :^Irs.  Samuel  Stanton,  17 
Southampton  Row,  London,  W.  C.  Our  advice  to 
American  travellers  is  to  intrust  to  them  all  passage, 
freight  and  trading  business  in  London  and  England,  to 
which  they  cannot  attend  themselves.  I  wish  I  had 
forwarded  our  trunks  from  Asia  to  their  care,  instead  of 
those  Liverpool  express  agents ;  then  they  would  not 
probably  have  been  delivered  with  one  broken  open  and 
minus  everything  valuable.  Tourists  should  seek,  if 
possible,  to  avoid  English  and  French  express  agencies. 
Those  of  Switzerland  and  Germany  are  much  more 
trustworthy.  I  should  also  advise  those  who  can  travel 
at  home  without  a  guardian,  to  let  Cook's,  Gage's,  and 
other  tourist  agencies  alone.  Let  them  alone!  I  did, 
but  have  kept  my  eyes  open. 

Several  of  our  passengers  are  clergymen,  but  they 
do  not  seem  at  all  interested  in  the  subject  of  Christian 
Missions.  They  are  fluent  in  conversation  upon  other 
religious  topics  ;  but,  when  I  make  an  inquiry  or  obser- 


ONE-SIDED    RELIGIOUS    INTELLIGENCE.  511 

vation  upon  the  work  of  their  different  mission  societies, 
then  they  must  be  excused  to  take  a  little  exercise  on 
deck,  or  they  have  forgotten  something  in  their  state- 
room, or  the  rolling  and  i)itching  of  the  vessel  begin  to 
make  them  very  uncomfortable.  I  wonder  what  is 
the  difficulty.  That  they  are  true  christian  men  is  very 
evident.  But  their  religious  intelligence  is  one-sided. 
They  lack  general  missionary  information,  and  are 
ashamed  to  confess  it.  One  of  them  is  smoking  up 
more  money  on  cigars  during  this  voyage  than  he  has 
probably  ever  given,  at  least  in  one  year,  to  foreign 
missions.  Another  of  them  Avas  evidently  surprised  to 
learn  that  an}^  other  denominations  than  his  own  were 
engaged  in  evangelizing  American  Indians.  Repeatedly 
I  left  the  latest  reports  of  the  English  and  Scotch  so- 
cieties upon  the  tables  within  their  reach,  but  they  would 
read  only  the  title-pages.  No  wonder  if  the  churches 
to  which  they  minister  are  anti-mission,  or  annually  in- 
sult the  Lord  with  a  bare  pittance  of  a  contribution.  A 
clergyman  must*  be  posted  and  interested  in  world 
evangelization,  or  his  church  will  be  delinquent.  What 
a  responsibility  !  On  the  other  hand  two  or  three  of 
the  lady  passengers  are  alive  on  the  subject.  They 
never  seemed  to  weary  of  securing  information.  One 
of  them  evidently  knows  more  of  God's  work  in 
foreign  lands  than  all  those  clergymen  together.  It  is 
delightful  to  roam  with  them  over  the  green  fields  far 
away.  I  hope  their  ministers  are  not  a  drag  upon  them 
at  home. 

Of  nothing  have  I  been  more  impressed  during  the 
last  two  years,  than  that  the  establishing  and  guiding 
wisdom  of  the  modern  missions  of  Protestantism  is  that 
from  above.  It  has  been,  as  when  looking  within  my  own 
heart  and  asking,  How  comes  it  that  old  tastes  and  dis- 
positions and  affections  have  become  so  radically  different  ? 
—  and,  when  evidently  no  explanation  of  natural  cause 
and  effect  is  adequate,  the  restful,  joyful,  unshaken 
conviction  forms  —  it  is  of  God.  Oh!  so  many,  many 
things  have  I  seen  of  world  evangelization  for  which 
plainly  there  is  no  human  explanation !    That  a  large 


512  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

company  of  christians  should  ultimately  become  so  in- 
terested in  having  the  Gospel  preached  to  the  heathen, 
as  to  offer  their  own  services  ;  that  others  should  feel 
prompted  to  support  them  in  so  laudable  an  enterprise  ; 
that  in  the  course  of  time  these  self-sacrificing  efforts 
should  make  an  impression  upon  a  goodly  number  at  all 
the  stations  throughout  the  pagan  and  anti-christian 
world,  we  can  understand.  But  these  items  are  very 
far  from  being  all  that  there  is  to  foreign  missions. 
They  are  only  the  threshold  to  the  temple,  the  canvas  to 
the  art,  the  scale  to  the  symphony.  Looking  more 
closely  and  listening  more  attentively,  we  learn  of  a 
bewildering  number  of  marvellous  adaptations  in  the 
mission  field,  as  when  one  studies  nature  upon  or  be- 
neath the  earth's  surface  or  in  the  heavens.  And 
likewise  the  more  we  discover,  the  more  we  are  con- 
vinced the  number  is  infinite :  adaptations  of  mission- 
aries to  their  work,  and  of  their  work  to  them ; 
adaptations  of  numerous  stations,  to  which  our  laborers 
have  been  driven  contrary  to  their  orders  and  their  own 
judgments :  adaptations  of  language,  often  scarcely 
less  marked  than  that  of  the  preparation  of  the  Greek 
at  the  time  of  our  Lord's  advent :  adaptations  of 
national  prosperities  and  adversities  for  the  furtherance 
of  evangelizing  work  at  the  very  time  of  its  preparation 
for  advance  :  adaptations  of  political  and  commercial 
and  social  movements  to  open  new  fields  for  missions, 
to  remove  obstacles  when  really  in  the  way,  to  give 
notable  demonstration  of  the  value  of  Christianity  when 
the  cause  demanded  it,  to  purify  the  native  churches 
when  they  had  become  corrupted ;  and  many,  many 
other  adaptations  proving,  fully  up  to  the  measure  of 
the  argument  of  design  for  the  existence  of  God,  that 
Christian  Missions  are  God's  Avork. 

How  much  I  have  seen  that  is  plain  to-day,  but  was 
dark  and  mysterious  a  generation  ago  !  Our  fathers 
grieved  that  Japan  and  China  were  so  inaccessible  to 
the  Gospel.  But  better  the  delay  of  the  opportunity 
they  desired,  and  the  present  marvellous  openings  and 
facilities  connected  with  political  and  social  movements 


LIGHT   AND   PROGKESS.  513 

in  Japan  and  commercial  developments  in  China  unfore- 
seen hy  men.  What  has  delayed  for  so  many  years  the 
present  wonderful  mission  enterprises  in  Africa  ?  God 
was  waiting  for  christian  nations  to  act  justly  to  the 
slave.  Now  we  can  enter  that  vast  interior  with  clean 
hands,  and  tell  without  averted  gaze  of  the  love  of  God 
we  know  to  the  scores  of  newly  discovered  millions.  Our 
fathers  wondered  that  in  India  so  much  mission  school 
and  high  caste  effort  accomplished  so  little  evangelizing 
result ;  now  we  see,  in  the  light  of  Anglican  Church 
missions  in  Tinnevelh"  and  those  of  the  American  Con- 
gregationalists  and  Baptists  in  ^ladura  and  Telugu-land 
respectively,  that  greater  emphasis  must  be  placed  upon 
preaching  and  efforts  among  the  lowest  classes  accord- 
ing to  the  principles  laid  down  in  the  first  chapter  of 
first  Corinthians.  Why  have  so  many  missions  had  a 
large  measure  of  success  in  their  early  years,  and  then 
for  long  periods  stood  apparently  quite  still  in  their 
advance  ?  It  is  plain  now  that  greater  value  was  needed 
to  be  given  to '  the  preparation  of  a  native  ministry. 
Likewise  of  many  other  clouds,  formerly  so  dark,  but 
now  showino'  their  silver  linino^. 

"Blind  nnbc4ief  is  sure  to  err, 
And  scan  His  works  in  vain. 
God  is  His  own  interpreter. 
And  He  will  make  it  plain." 

In  all  lands  I  have  been  impressed  with  the  rapidity 
of  success  attending  mission  enterprise.  This  is  far  from 
being  a  slow  movement.  In  three  late  years  American 
Presbyterian  missions  gained  64  per  cent  in  the  number 
of  communicants.  During  ten  years  lately  American 
Congregational  missions  increased  100  per  cent.  In 
India  educational  prejudices  have  given  way  much  more 
rapidly  than  among  our  own  Anglo-Saxon  ancestry.  The 
public  sentiment  in  favor  of  Christianity,  I  could  realize 
as  having  advanced  50  per  cent  during  the  last  13  years 
among  the  Moslem  populations  of  the  Ottoman  empire. 
It  is  safe  to  say  ten  times  as  many  are  intellectually  con- 
vinced of  the  truth  of  the  missionary's  message  as  have 


514  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

yet  openly  identified  themselves  with  the  stations. 
Should  they  never  profess  Christ,  this  is  great  gain,  for 
their  hostility  is  largely  diminished,  and  their  children, 
or  their  children's  children  will  come.  During  the  life 
time  of  many  still  living  the  S(.*riptures  have  been  trans- 
lated into  over  200  lano'uaoes,  and  a  larofe  christian 
literature  has  been  created  for  many  lands.  The  mod- 
ern newspaper  press  in  nearl}'  all  countries  is  a  great 
advance  for  influence  in  the  overthrow  of  ignorance, 
superstition  and  bigotry.  AMien  we  think  how  slowly 
nations  generally  move  in  their  fundamental  convictions 
and  sentiments,  we  are  amazed  at  the  rapidity  with  which 
the  spirit  of  opposition  and  criticism  to  missions  in 
British  and  American  churches  has  given  way  in  one 
short  generation.  Much  indifference  and  scepticism  re- 
main, but  history  has  few  records  of  greater  and  quicker 
change.  Verily,  as  did  the  ^Master,  we  also  behold 
"Satan  as  lio^htninsf  Ml  from  heaven." 

And  yet,  compared  with  what  is  assuredly  coming, 
even  the  present  will  seem  but  a  slow  preparatory  move- 
ment. We  have  not  simply  to  consult  the  prophecies 
of  God's  Word,  which  point  to  grander  fulfilments  than 
have  yet  appeared  ;  there  are  other  and  abundant  prophe- 
cies in  the  work  itself,  whose  meaning  we  have  learned 
to  interpret  in  the  light  of  the  last  few  years.  Ever  since 
New  York  City  became  a  commercial  port,  the  great 
rock-beds  of  Hurl  Gate  have  been  considered  serious 
obstructions.  Government  made  large  appropriations 
for  their  removal,  and  to  General  Newton  assigned  the 
superintendency  of  the  extensive  engineering  operations. 
Year  after  year  to  passengers  upon  the  Sound  steam- 
ers little  seemed  to  be  accomplished.  Piles  of  stone  in- 
creased near  the  entrance  to  the  shafts,  through  which 
the  work  was  being  carried  on  down  under  the  waters 
out  of  sight.  But  these  apparent  results  were  far  from 
satisfactory.  Many  people  were  incredulous  of  the 
undertaking,  and  it  was  a  very  difiScult  task  to  secure 
continued  appropriations.  Yet  the  excayations  continued 
in  different  directions  through  the  acres  of  rock.  The 
solid  mass  of  obstruction  was  honeycombed  with  mines. 


GREAT    RESULTS   OF   UNAPPRECIATED    WORK.       515 

Then  these  were  charged  with  tons  of  powder,  dynamite, 
gun-cotton  and  other  highly  explosive  substances .  From 
all  these  magazines  of  power  wires  were  laid  to  be  ready 
for  connection  with  an  electric  battery  at  some  distance 
from  the  shore.  Finally,  when  preparations  w^ere  all 
completed,  General  Newton  took  the  hand  of  his  little 
daughter,  and  with  it  pressed  the  key  that  sent  the 
electric  spark  to  those  hundreds  of  waiting  forces.  A 
moment,  and  the  mighty  work  was  accomplished.  The 
demonstration  was  sufficiently  grand  at  last  to  satisfy  all 
observers.  Not  a  day's  work  of  those  years  of  toil  in 
the  darkness,  so  perilous,  so  unappreciated,  so  sur- 
rounded by  impatient  multitudes,  was  thrown  away. 
So  it  has  been  with  much  of  the  mission  labor  our 
Mhers  accomplished.  They  commenced  at  the  task 
of  removing  far  'mightier  ol)structions.  After  many 
years,  few  of  them  had  much  to  show  for  their  toil.  It 
was  often  difficult  to  secure  their  appropriations.  ^Nlulti- 
tudes  of  christians  withheld  their  sympathies  and  co- 
operations. The  mission  to  Tahiti,  at  first  apparently  so 
unsuccessful,  was  opposed  l)y  the  vast  majority  of  the 
Church.  Carey  was  publicly  censured  l)y  the  modera- 
tor of  a  large  religious  assemt^ly  for  having  dared  to 
suggest  the  duty  of  Christian  Missions.  Rev.  Sidney 
Smith  turned  his  famous  satire  upon  all  efibrts  at  evan- 
gelization in  Southern  Asia.  He  represented  Carey  and 
Marshman  as  "consecrated  cobblers,  whose  blunderini^: 
zeal  would  endanger  the  lives  of  British  residents,  and 
rob  England  of  the  no])le  prize  of  her  India  posses- 
sions." In  1812  the  20  years'  charter  of  the  East  India 
Company  had  to  be  renewed.  Parliament  was  strongly 
disposed  to  continue  the  proviso,  that  no  educational  or 
religious  efforts  should  be  allowed.  And  it  required  900 
largely  signed  petitions,  urged  upon  Parliament  ])y  Wil- 
berforce  and  his  associates,  to  secure  even  a  partially 
tolerant  charter.  But  of  late  years,  from  time  to  time, 
preparations  at  different  points  of  the  mighty  work  have 
been  completed.  Vast  accumulations  of  consecration 
and  faith  and  prayer  have  been  located  far  down  in  the 
darkness  and  strength  of  heathen  ignorance  and  supersti- 


516  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

tion  and  degradation.  And  again  and  again,  before  the 
astonished  gaze  of  the  Church  and  the  world,  the  great 
Father  of  us  all  has  taken  hold  of  one  of  his  little  chil- 
dren by  His  almighty  hand,  using  its  feeble  uncertain 
touch,  and  the  fire  of  heaven  has  flashed  home  to  these 
magazines  of  si)iritual  power,  and  grand  results  have 
been  manifested,  justifying  all  the  labor  that  had  been 
expended,  all  the  perils  encountered,  all  the  darkness 
endured,  and  all  the  long  waiting  upon  the  Lord.  With 
such  experience,  so  often  repeated  within  the  past  quarter 
of  a  century,  we  know  full  well  how  to  interpret  a  vast 
deal  of  Providential  dealings  with  Christian  Missions  to- 
day. Evangelizing  mining  operations  are  a  hundred 
times  more  extensive  than  a  generation  ago.  Down 
amid  the  darkness  and  rock-bound  difficulties  a  much 
larger  number  are  toiling  and  praying  and  waiting. 
When  their  consecration  and  faith  and  love  are  enabled 
to  expend  all  their  mighty  spiritual  power ;  when  God's 
fire  gives  them  their  opportunity,  results  must  appear 
far  surpassing  in  their  aggregate  all  that  has  yet  been 
witnessed  of  the  efiect  of  missionary  enterprise. 

Indeed,  they,,  who  study  the  signs  of  the  times  with 
open  eyes  and  unbiassed  judgments,  may  not  be  impa- 
tient for  the  second  coming  of  their  Lord.  It  is  very 
evident  that  we  are  still  living  under  the  dispensation  of 
the  hiding  of  the  Divine  power.  There  are  vast  corps 
of  Emmanuel's  army  which  have  not  yet  been  brought 
into  action.  Yes,  say  some  of  our  most  pious  brethren, 
but,  despairing  of  continued  spiritual  success  in  the  use 
of  the  ordinary  instrumentalities  of  Grace,  they  look 
now  for  the  revelation  of  physical  force.  They  are 
eager  for  Christ  to  come  again,  and  by  his  almighty 
physical  power  relieve  the  strain  upon  the  situation.  It 
must  be  acknowledged  that  this  is  primarily  a  question 
of  exegesis,  and  yet  hasty  interpretations  of  Scripture 
have  often  had  to  be  modified  in  the  light  of  science. 
And  it  would  seem  as  if  the  growing  light  of  the  develop- 
ing science  of  Christian  Missions  is  calculated  to  dissi- 
pate all  impatient  and  materialistic  "  second  advent "  in- 
terpretations of  God's  Word.      If  there  are  Scripture 


FINAL    TRimiPH   OF    PRESENT    DISPENSATION.       517 

prophecies,  which  may  be   interpreted  in  favor  of  the 
speedy  introduction  of  entirely  new  means  and  methods 
of    conquest    among   earth's    rebellious    millions,    and 
yet  which  can  also  be  understood  to  mean  encourage- 
ment to  4,871  missionaries  in  foreign  lands  to  go    on 
looking  to  ultimate  victory  through  the  Holy  bpint  s 
blessino's  upon  their  work  and  the  labors   of  their  suc- 
cessors, and  if  this  latter  interpretation  seems  more  m 
harmony  with  the  teachings   of  history    and  ot    those 
mio-hty   and  myriad  providential  movements   that  are 
clustering  around  the  present  and  crowding-^the  thresh- 
old of  the  future,  then  let  us  gladly  read  Gods  \\  orcl 
as  teaching  the  final  triumph  of  this  old  dispensation, 
under  which  apostles  and  martyrs   followed   Christ  m 
death,  under  which  Luther  and  Calvin  and  the  ^^  esleys 
led  their  reformations,  under  which  the  modern  mis- 
sionary and  Sunday-school    enterprises  have  been  in- 
augurated, and  under  which  the  vast  majority  ot  those 
who  have  fallen  asleep  in  Jesus  have  lived  and  labored 
in   full  faith  of  the  power  of  revealed   truth  and   the 
omnipotence  of  the  Holy  Spirit.     It  is  the  poorest  time 
now,  in  all  the  centuries  of  the  Christian  Church,  to  haul 
down  the  liao'  and  confess  defeat.      Never  has  the  out- 
look of  Christianity  l^een  so   hopeful.     Never  has  the 
world  had  so  little  ftiith  in  its  own  religio.ns.     ^ever 
has  there  been  so  broad  a  basis  among  men  for  christian 
morality.     Never   has    so    large    a    proportion    of  the 
population  of  the  olobe  l)een  favorably  disposed  toward 
the  Gospel.     And  these  facts  should  be  taken  into  ac- 
count in  interpreting  God's  Word. 

I  am  returning  with  a  greatly  strengtheiied  convic- 
tion that  the  supreme  need  of  this  world  is  Christianity. 
A  personal  flimiliarity  with  the  various  religions  ot  the 
o'lobe  deprives  them  of  almost  all  their  charms,  and 
often  reminds  of  the  deceptive  mirage  ot  the  desert. 
The  glistening  refreshing  waters,  when  seen  trom  a 
distance,  prove  upon  near  approach  to  have  nothmg  tor 
the  parched  lips  but  dry  sand.  Christianity  alone  has 
the  water  of  life  to  give.  All  world  religions,  as  it 
has  been  well  said,  appear  as  hands  of  want,  reaching 


518  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

out  toward  the  heavens,  grasping  eagerly  but  finding 
nothing,  while  in  Cliristianity  alone  God's  hands  are 
stretched  forth  to  rescue  man.  They  represent  human 
yearnings,  this  the  infinite  longings  of  the  Divine  heart. 
World  religions  are  the  symptoms  of  the  soul's  hunger ; 
Christianity  is  the  feeding  of  that  hunger,  the  giving  of 
the  bread  of  life,  the  distribution  of  meat  that  is  meat 
indeed,  and  of  drink  that  is  drink  indeed.  Christianity, 
as  Dr.  Mark  Hopkins  remarked  at  Milwaukee,  is, 
aside  from  supernatural  intervention,  of  all  known  or 
conceivable  religions  the  least  fitted  to  survive,  and 
yet,  of  them  all,  it  is  assuredly  the  most  fitted  to  meet 
the  wants  of  man.  "As  the  world,"  he  continued, 
"  now  is,  and  left  to  itself,  the  thorns,  the  thistles,  the 
cockle  of  idolatry,  and  superstition,  and  fimaticism,  and 
formalism,  and  the  deadly  night-shade  of  infidelity  are 
fitted  to  survive.  But  if  the  grand  ideals  of  purity,  and 
peace,  and  blessedness  of  which  man  is  capal)le,  are  to 
be  realized ;  if  the  capabilities  that  are  in  him  as  made 
in  the  image  of  God  are  to  be  brought  out,  Christianity 
alone  is  fit.  Like  wheat,  it  has  a  natural  tendency  to 
survive,  but  owing  to  its  environment  it  needs  the  con- 
stant care  of  the  Great  Husbandman,  and  the  prayers 
and  labor  of  those  who  work  together  with  Him." 

I  am  disappointed  in  not  having  upon  our  steamer 
any  missionaries  returning  home  for  their  vacations. 
We  did  meet  two  of  them  between  Smyrna  and  Athens  ; 
two  between  Corfu  and  Trieste  ;  one  in  Germany,  and 
one  in  London.  It  was  a  real  pleasure  to  greet  them 
upon  the  threshold  of  their  well-earned  rests.  We  did 
not  have  it  in  our  hearts  to  grumlile  at  them  at  all,  nor 
to  say  anything  depreciatingly  behind  their  backs.  I 
thoroughly  believe  in  giving  missionaries  vacations,  and 
so  would  any  one  who  should  become  personally  ac- 
quainted with  their  hard  self-denying  work,  so  exhaust- 
ing to  both  mind  and  body  under  even  the  most  favor- 
able circumstances.  Of  every  one  hundred  missionaries, 
from  ten  to  fifteen  as  an  average  should  be  at  home 
resting  all  the  while.  It  is  true,  that  means  a  great 
deal  of  mission  money  paid  out  for  travelling  expenses, 


MISSIONARY   VACATIONS.  519 

and  more  time  off  their  field  of  work  than  is  generally 
allowed  by  the  home  churches  to  their  ministers  for 
vacations.  But  it  is  all  a  wise  investment,  and  an  aver- 
age of  one  year  home  every  eight  is  none  too  much 
relaxation  from  the  terrible  strain  of  a  true  missionary's 
life.  This  is  exactly  the  British  India  furlough  arrange- 
ment, enforced  in  both  the  military  and  civil  services. 
The  rule  is  not  prompted  by  any  gratitude  or  philan- 
thropy, but  it  is  simply  a  cool  calculation,  based  upon 
a  large  experience,  extending  over  many  years,  that 
thus  the  most  service  is  secured  for  a  given  outlay  of 
money.  Some  of  the  English  societies  are  quite  right 
in  insisting  upon  regular  rotation  off  the  field.  If  a 
missionary  becomes  so  absorbed  in  his  work  as  to  forget 
the  conditions  of  health  and  continued  usefulness,  as 
also  the  temporary  service  he  may  be  at  home  in  awak- 
ening new  interest  in  foreign  evangelization,  then  they 
say  to  him  :  "  We  cannot  afford  the  risk  of  your  neglect- 
ing your  furlough." 

From  a  quite  extensive  acquaintance  with  railroad  and 
steamship  men,  those  who  control  the  passenger  traffic, 
with  whom  providentially  I  have  been  thrown  of  late, 
I  am  fully  persuaded  that  arrangements  can  be  made 
for  excursion  tickets  home  for  foreign  missionaries,  at 
very  much  larger  al)atements  than  those  yet  secured, 
and  that  thus  a  solution  can  l^e  given  to  the  quite  per- 
plexing missionary  vacation  question.  The  large  sums 
required  to  l)ring  a  missionary  famil}^  home,  and  then, 
after  a  year  or  two  of  support,  return  them  to  their  field, 
is,  after  all  that  can  be  said  in  favor  of  the  expenditure, 
a  mountain  in  the  way.  I  copy  from  late  reports  of 
different    societies    for    previous   year :    "  Return    of 

and  family,  $1,135.77.     Allowance  in  United 

States    of    ,    $1,000.       Allowance    to   another, 

including  special  travelling  expenses,  $1,286.     Return 

of  Mrs. and  children,  $1,114.70.     Refitting  Mr. 

and  Mrs.  ,  and  expenses  back  to ,  $1,541. 

Same  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  ,  $1,402.95."     These  are 

amounts  of  considerable  magnitude  indeed  to  be  drawn 
from  treasuries  always  embarrassed  for  lack  of  funds, 


520  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

and  relying  for  their  chief  supports  upon  the  penny 
contributions  of  the  multitudes.  In  the  main  I  know 
they  are  right,  and  am  confident  that  familiarity  with 
the  circumstances  would  secure  the  cordial  approval  of 
nine-tenths  of  the  contributins^  friends  of  foreis^n  mis- 
sions.  But  they  are  very  large  ;  and  can  they  not  be 
reduced?  As  it  is,  most  of  the  societies  are  compelled 
to  bring  to  bear  an  unwise  pressure  upon  the  mission- 
aries to  remain  two  or  three  years  longer  at  work  after 
the  proper  time  for  their  furlough  has  come.  This  has 
a  tendency  to  break  their  health,  to  incapacitate  them 
for  the  needed  missionary  influence  at  home,  and  to 
necessitate  a  longer  stay  away  from  their  work  than  is 
prudent.  From  hundreds  of  special  observations  and 
inquiries  right  at  this  point,  I  am  convinced  that  the 
absence  of  the  missionar}"  for  the  second  working  season 
from  his  field  is  very  greatly  to  be  deplored.  Eighteen 
months'  vacation,  to  cover  at  least  one  year  at  home, 
and  so  arranged  as  to  commence  at  the  close  of  one 
work  season  and  to  end  at  the  beginning  of  the  second 
following,  would  be  the  wisest  arrangement;  but  the 
financial  pressure  for  at  least  ten  years'  continuous  ser- 
vice makes  this  generally  impracticable,  and  the  broken- 
down  laborer  has  to  drao^  alono^  the  furlouoh  to  two  full 
years  or  more.  Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  a  '^  work 
season  "  of  six  months  means  for  the  missionary  a  play 
season  for  the  balance  of  the  year.  It  is  twelve  months' 
work  every  year,  only  that  half  the  time,  the  weather 
being  less  uncomfortable  and  the  climate  less  unhealthy, 
they  try  to  do  double  or  treble  work.  Cannot  the 
home  collection  and  administration  expenses  be  largely 
reduced  in  order  to  relieve  the  missionary  furlough  em- 
barrassment? I  shall  revert  to  this  again,  and  simpl}^ 
here  reply  that  such  suggestion  is  impracticable  until 
the  ministry  shall  do  its  dut}^  far  more  faithfully  with 
the  churches.  Full  relief  in  this  direction  is  not  prob- 
able in  the  present  generation.  Increased  collections 
do  not  keep  pace  with  the  ten  to  fifteen  per  cent  ordi- 
nary annual  development  of  the  mission  responsibilities 
abroad,  to  sav  nothino^  of  the  constanth -increasino^  num- 


A    CHILL    TO    THE    WELCOME    HOME.  521 

ber  of  special  emergencies.  For  solution  then  we  are 
driven  to  the  hope  of  some  generous  abatement  arrange- 
ment with  a  sufficient  number  of  the  great  lines  of  passen- 
ger traffic.  Let  them  not  be  asked  to  lower  their  rates 
for  forwarding  or  permanently  returning  missionaries. 
But  simph^  through  the  proper  cliannels  let  request  be 
made  for  excursion  rates  home  for  resident  missionaries 
abroad,  good  for  eighteen  months ;  and  from  consider- 
able conversation  and  correspondence,  I  am  fully  war- 
ranted in  reporting  that  the  plan  is  quite  practicable. 

I  have  been  asked  repeatedly,  if  I  did  not  think  that 
missionaries  often  come  home  on  the  plea  of  health 
when  there  is  very  slight  occasion,  or  at  least  no  abso- 
lute necessity  for  incurring  so  large  expense?  It  has 
appeared,  however,  that  such  criticism  is  generally  based 
upon  the  pui^lic  appearance  of  the  missionaries  after 
they  have  had  their  long  refreshing  voyages  and  rests, 
and  grateful  changes  of  diet  coming  home.  As  well 
meet  an  invalided  minister,  on  his  return  from  a  two  or 
three  month.^'  tour  of  Europe,  or  a  camping-out  in  the 
forests  of  Maine,  or  a  rusticating  anywhere  in  the  coun- 
try, and,  noting  that  now  he  looks  quite  as  Avell  as  the 
average  of  people,  conclude  that  it  must  have  been  un- 
necessary for  him  to  leave  his  work  and  throw  away  so 
much  money.  In  Southern  Asia  I  called  at  a  mission 
house,  where  the  head  of  the  family  had  ])een  languish- 
ing for  months.  He  seemed  on  the  brink  of  the  grave. 
We  had  to  step  softly  and  talk  in  whispers.  The  phy- 
sician said  the  only  hope  was  in  getting  him  off  for 
home.  He  was  carried  on  board  a  steamer  the  next 
day  upon  a  bed  as  helpless  as  an  infant.  But  at  sea,  and 
especially  as  he  reached  a  more  bracing  climate,  he  com- 
menced very  rapid  recovery.  And  when  he  landed  in 
America,  —  well,  he  was  not  welcomed.  ''  What  busi- 
ness had  such  a  healthy,  hearty  man  coming  home  at  our 
expense  on  the  plea  of  an  invalid?"  I  urged  the 
brother,  whom  I  met  in  London  on  his  sick-leave 
furlough  home,  to  delay  a  few  weeks  that  we  might  re- 
turn together.  But,  "  No,"  he  replied,  ''  I  am  improving 
so  fast,  I  should  destroy  my  welcome."     Moreover,  I 


522  CHRISTIAN  iMISSIONS. 

can  deliberately  testify  that,  as  a  rule,  missionaries,  even 
under  their  repelling  circumstances  and  long  absences 
from  kindred  and  native  land,  are  yet  of  all  classes  of 
christian  laborers  I  have  met  in  the  world  the  most 
reluctant  to  leave  their  work  even  temporarily. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  two  observations  in  this  con- 
nection which  candor  requires  me  to  make.  In  the  first 
place,  there  is  far  too  much  carelessness  in  the  matter  of 
preserving  health  on  the  part  especially  of  the  younger 
missionaries ;  and,  secondly,  I  have  met  a  few,  under 
appointment  of  each  of  the  general  societies,  who  seem 
to  forget  that  home  missionaries  and  ministers  in  large 
numbers  have  to  work  on  despite  aches  and  pains  and 
weaknesses  ;  that  a  run  of  fever  or  a  bereavement  is  not 
considered  for  them  sufficient  excuse  for  throwing  up 
their  work  and  taking  many  months'  relaxation,  and 
that  also  in  the  home  lands  people  do  get  sick  and  die. 
The  former  observation  recalls  the  unreasonable  over- 
work of  many.  Of  course  the  task  of  converting  the 
heathen  and  anti-christian  world'  is  immense.  Each 
laborer  is  in  the  presence  of  a  mountain  ;  but  therefore 
God  does  not  ask  any  one  to  commit  suicide  by  exces- 
sive toil.  Many  in  Southern  Asia  and  Equatorial 
Africa  presume  too  much  at  first,  as  I  did,  upon  their 
own  alnlity  to  guard  against  sunstroke.  Have  not  they 
been  accustomed  in  the  summer  to  see  the  mercury  way 
up  among  the  nineties  ?  What  is  the  use  of  pith  hats 
and  white  umbrellas  and  so  much  timid  efieminacy? 
The  right  way  is  to  become  hardened  to  it  all  like  a 
native.  All  that  sounds  very  well,  l^ut  it  will  not  work, 
as  many  graves  and  broken-down  constitutions  in  these 
foreign  lands  can  testify.  The  climate  is  different ;  the 
effect  of  the  sun's  rays  is  peculiar ;  and  our  thin, 
white  skins  and  comparatively  fragile  skulls  will  not 
allow  us  the  same  impunity  that  the  natives  enjoy.  In 
many  other  respects  also  the  experienced  missionaries 
are  able  to  give  much  valuable  counsel.  But  then 
it  is  rather  awkward  to  go  back  to  first  principles, 
and  ask  instruction.  Nevertheless  it  is  wisdom  for  all 
young  missionaries ;   and  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  the 


SUPPORT    OF   RETURNED   MISSIONARIES.  523 

veterans  are  partly  to  blame  for  not  volunteering  advice 
even  where  it  is  not  sought.  From  much  observation 
and  a  good  deal  of  uncomfortable  personal  experience, 
I  have  concluded  that  a  third  at  least  of  the  disasters 
to  the  health  of  missionaries  might  be  avoided  by  ordi- 
nary prudence  and  by  prompt  and  thorough  compliance 
with  the  counsel  of  experience. 

The  plan,  for  abatement  on  travelling  expenses  has 
been  suggested  as  solution  of  that  part  of  the  missionary 
vacation  question,  but  some  other  specific  is  needed  for 
the  difiiculty  of  its  costing  so  much  to  support  the  mis- 
sionaries while  at  home.  Here  are  two  reports,  for 
example,  first  at  hand.  The  American  Board  (Congre- 
gationalist)  of  its  last  year's  ordinary  receipts  of  $430,- 
752.46  spent  $17,296.44  in  the  support  of  missionaries 
and  their  children  in  this  country.  The  American 
Baptists  (North)  last  year,  for  the  same  purpose, 
appropriated,  from  their  $290,851.63,  $14,525.75. 
This  is  less  indeed  than  five  per  cent,  and  yet  the 
amount  itself  is  considerable,  and  the  problem  is  as 
to  the  possibility  of  reducing  it.  The  questions  of 
annuities  to  invalided  missionaries  and  to  returned 
widows  of  deceased  missionaries,  of  the  support  of  the 
children  of  missionaries,  and  of  the  allowances  to  l)e 
made  during  vacations,  they  all  require,  and  there  is 
abundant  reason  to  believe  that  they  do  receive  the 
most  careful  consideration.  We  will  not  beoTudoe  the 
widows  a  reasonal)le  help  in  struggling  with  life 
alone,  especially  as  so  many  of  their  sisterhood  in 
bereavement  remain  with  wonderful  heroism  to  fight 
on  the  battle  in  which  their  companions  have  fallen. 
And  society  is  beginning  to  take  some  pity  on  broken 
down  old  men,  until  lately  the  chiefly  neglected  class. 
It  Avould  indeed  be  a  shame  to  the  cause  of  Christian 
Missions  if  some  gray-haired  veteran  of  the  missionary 
ranks  should  have  to  face  the  possibility  of  the  poor- 
house  and  the  potter's  field  while  waiting  in  the  home 
land  a  few  months  for  the  chariot  of  glory  to  l^ear  him 
away  to  our  Father's  house.  We  cannot  neglect  the  chil- 
dren, deprived  for  the  sake  of  our  cause  of  so  many  ^^ears 


524  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

of  immediate  parental  solicitude  and  watchful  care.  A 
reasonable  expense  should  be  incurred  on  their  behalf, 
while  care  is  taken  not  to  rob  them  of  the  spirit  of 
self-reliance,  and  not  to  give  them  any  harmful  notions 
of  the  obligations  of  the  Church  and  society  to  them  on 
account  of  the  labors  and  sacrifices  connected  with  the 
missionary  lives  of  their  parents.  And,  as  to  the  vaca- 
tions, no  one  has  yet  discovered  any  way  of  living  a 
year  in  this  country  without  its  costing  something. 
Especially  if  a  man  and  his  family  are  expected  to  keep 
up  respectable  appearances,  and  either  be  visiting  out 
or  receiving  visitors  half  the  time,  and  every  week  be 
riding  around  through  the  country  attending  meetings 
and  delivering  addresses,  somebody  has  got  to  pay 
some  money?  Who?  —  that  is  the  question.  The 
amounts  reported  as  distri])uted  around  by  the  treas- 
uries are  plainly  small  enough.  No  family  is  coming  to 
America  to  set  up  housekeeping  for  a  year  and  save 
much  money  out  of  $800  or  $1,000.  And  it  is  very 
seldom  that  returned  missionaries  ask  for  such  support 
beyond  a  reasonable  time.  As  a  rule  they  are  too 
quickly  nervous  under  the  feeling  ot  pay  without  labor. 
And  yet  they  do  labor,  and  labor  hard.  Who  should 
pay  for  this?  "The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire."  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  time  has  come  when  those  for 
whom  the  work  is  done  should  bear  a  larger  share  of 
the  expense.  The  missionary  lecturers  are  now  in  de- 
mand. Many  congregations  are  anxious  to  hear  them. 
Many  ministers  are  eager  to  have  them  occupy  their 
pulpits.  Beyond,  indeed,  there  are  those  who  in  their 
ignorance  and  selfishness  are  in  an  entirely  different 
spirit.  But  to-day  the  mission  cause  has  a  constituency, 
a  large  warm-hearted  multitude  of  churches,  and  minis- 
ters, asking,  even  begging  for  the  services  almost  every 
Sunday  of  the  returned  missionary.  Should  not  they 
do  the  paying  ?  Is  it  right  for  the  minister  to  have  his 
relief  from  work,  and  the  people  to  have  their  choice  of 
services  for  the  day,  and  then  for  others  to  foot  the  bill? 
No.  Let  it  be  understood  that,  wherever  a  returned 
missionary  is  asked  to  address,  a  special  collection  shall 


SPECIFIC    DONATIONS.  525 

be  taken  up  for  the  support  of  himself  and  family 
while  in  this  country.  Let  him  credit  this  upon  the 
amount  guaranteed  by  his  society.  And  let  it  be 
understood  that  this  is  no  substitute  for  the  regular 
missionary  contributions.  At  such  places  as  the  execu- 
tive officers  may  think  it  ])est  to  send  the  missionaries 
without  invitations,  a  discretion  should  be  given  as  to 
asking  this  or  any  other  collection,  but  I  question 
whether  it  is  now  best  to  throw  the  burden  of  responsi- 
bility of  working  up  entirely  new  missionary  interest 
upon  the  returned  missionaries.  Cannot  their  talents 
and  time  be  better  employed,  and  ought  not  this 
drudgery  to  be  attended  to  by  our  home  ministry  and 
laity  themselves? 

As  missionaries  go  around  addressing  and  visiting, 
they  make  friends,  often  warm  life-long  friends,  who 
will  want  to  send  them  special  presents  now  and  then. 
Ought  this  to  be  allowed?  Will  not  these  specific 
donations  be  a  serious  draft  upon  the  regular  resources 
of  the  treasury?  There  is  some  danger.  But  usually 
these  gifts  would  under  no  circumstances  have  come 
into  the  general  contribution.  It  is  very  seldom  that 
they  amount  to  more  than  little  souvenirs  ;  and  when 
they  do,  they  generally  supply  providentially  wants 
that  would  not  be  met  through  the  ordinary  channels. 
I  have  been  so  frequently  impressed  upon  the  various 
fields  that  Providence  has  much  to  do  with  specific 
donations,  arranging  thus  comforts  and  facilities  beyond 
the  appreciation  of  home  executive  officers,  that  I 
should  be  very  slow  to  antagonize  this  incidental  feature 
of  mission  support.  Only  let  the  missionaries  be 
prudent  in  their  encouragements  in  this  direction,  avoid- 
ing too  much  confidential  correspondence  upon  the  sub- 
ject as  calculated  to  discredit  their  society's  administra- 
tion, and  let  their  quite  exclusive  solicitude,  as  that  also 
of  the  rooms,  be  to  enlarge  the  resources  of  the  general 
treasury  and  to  secure  universal  confidence  in  its  man- 
agement. As  a  rule  every  donation  directly  to  any 
missionary  should  be  accompanied  with  at  least  the  full 
amount  of  the  regular  contribution  to  the  society.     It 


526  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

had  better  be  a  little  increased,  so  as  to  make  the  path- 
way of  the  specific  gift  perfectly  smooth.  I  have  known 
of  quite  a  number  of  people  introduced  to  the  habit  of 
contributing  to  missions  by  being  first  interested  per- 
sonally in  the  outfit  of  some  missionary,  or  in  the  making 
up  of  a  surprise  box  to  be  sent  to  one  of  their 
acquaintances  in  the  home  or  foreign  mission  field. 
Some  societies  make  a  great  deal  of  the  natural 
desire  to  do  for  those  we  know,  and  so  assign  mis- 
sionaries to  certain  churches  or  clusters  of  churches 
for  their  support.  But  this  seems  to  me  unwise. 
Better  leave  such  motive  to  the  sphere  of  the  incidental 
and  the  initiative.  All  as  rapidly  as  possible  should  be 
led  up  to  broad  views  of  mission  responsibility,  and  to 
giving  to  the  cause  of  world  evangelization  for  the  sake 
of  Christ. 

Frequently  on  deck,  when  watching  the  sailors  pull- 
ing together  at  the  rigging  ropes,  I  have  thought  of  the 
need  of  christians  pulling  more  together  in  both  their 
home  and  forei^fn  evamjelizino'  work.  There  is  a  o^reat 
deal  of  wisdom  in  a  ''  He-ho-he  "  of  mission  activity.  We 
need  more  Evangelical  Alliance  meetings  as  at  New 
York,  and  more  missionary  Conferences  as  at  Allahabad, 
at  Shanghai,  Bangalore  and  London.  These  sailors  also 
have  repeatedly  given  me  the  lesson  of  concentration. 
Are  not  some  of  the  societies  endeavoring  to  reach  over 
too  much  ground?  The  tendency  is  to  think  that,  if 
only  four  missionaries  can  be  supported,  they  must  be 
located  in  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe.  Variety  is 
helpful  in  stimulating  mission  interest,  l:)ut  I  am  per- 
suaded on  many  a  field  and  in  the  operations  of  several 
societies  concentration  is  needed.  Captain  Eads  has 
shown  the  world  the  value  of  this  principle  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi.  By  his  system  of  jetties  the  waters 
at  one  of  the  channels  were  made  to  flow  in  a  more 
compact  volume,  and  the  force  of  the  current  thus  ob- 
tained has  scoured  away  the  bar  that  so  long  hindered 
commerce. 

In  our  little  world  here  on  shipboard  it  is  amusing  to 
see   how    quickly   people   arrange   their    social  ranks. 


AFTER    THE    NOVELTY.  527 

Some  feel  so  much  above  others  that  they  hardly  treat 
them  politely.  I  have  seen  a  few  missionaries,  who 
have  not  been  entirely  successful  in  leaving  this  disposi- 
tion at  home.  They  preach  and  teach  the  natives  faith- 
fully, but  then  they  act  so  far  above  them  as  to  be 
almost  out  of  reaching  distance.  Politeness  is  not 
enough.  There  must  be  cordiality.  The  Master's  con- 
duct in  mingling  Avith  all  classes,  in  laying  aside  rll 
reserve  and  f:>ecoming  one  with  the  most  lowly,  needs 
carefully  to  be  studied  and  imitated. 

I  see  in  a  mission  report,  that  was  in  my  last  mail  at 
Liverpool,  that  the  subject  of  the  extent  of  training  in 
mission  schools  is  awakening,  as  it  should,  more  atten- 
tion. It  is  encouraging  to  see  leading  minds  in  the 
home  churches  pondering  the  accumulating  facts  from 
our  foreign  fields.  There  are  other  questions  than  this 
important  one  sufficient  together  to  fill  full  a  leading 
department  in  every  theological  seminary.  In  Europe 
there  are  some  schools  specially  devoted  to  training 
missionaries,  and  which  give  much  time  to  the  study  of 
the  present  practical  relations  of  Christianity  and  hea- 
thenism. The  plan,  however,  is  preferable  of  an  associ- 
ated missionary  professorship,  which  is  being  tried  in 
one  of  our  institutions.  At  least  there  should  be  home 
and  foreign  mission  lectureships  in  every  theological 
seminary. 

The  difficulties  of  our  voyage  are  increasing  every  day  : 
more  wind ;  higher  waves ;  darker  clouds.  In  some 
respects  it  is  so  with  the  mission  work.  We  gladly 
note  prosperities  —  wonderful  advancements ;  yet  so 
does  this  steamship  move  on  marvellously.  But  the 
captain  does  not  come  down  to  the  saloon  any  more, 
nor  will  he  talk  with  anj^  of  us  on  deck.  He  is  evi- 
dently anxious.  The  first  difficulties  of  the  missionary 
are  not  always  the  greatest.  The  early  years  with  a 
station  are  sometimes  the  smoothest  sailins:.  New 
missionaries,  new  stations, — they  awaken  interest  and 
sympathy.  But  let  us  not  forget  those  who  have  been 
out  a  few  years,  and  the  work  which  has  lost  its  novelty. 
There  is  the  centre  of  the  storm.  God  help  them,  for 
sometimes  it  is  a  regular  cyclone  ! 


528  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

But  there  is  land  again  !  Welcome,  our  own  America  ! 
Since  we  left  thee  two  years  ago  we  have  seen  many 
things  on  the  other  side.  How  much  there  is  in  that ! 
How  many  things  appear  differently  when  seen  from  the 
other  side  also  !  I  remember  of  a  printer  considered 
too  mean  to  be  tolerated  hy  his  shop-mates,  because  he 
always  said  no  to  solicitations  for  money,  Once  they 
knocked  him  down  for  refusing  to  contribute  to  an  ex- 
cursion. Then  he  told  them  of  a  sister  he  had  been 
trying  to  educate,  but  who  had  become  blind,  and  for 
whom  he  was  now  earning  and  saving  money,  that  she 
might  be  sent  to  Paris  for  an  operation.  From  the 
other  side  the  mean  one  was  seen  to  be  a  hero.  I  left 
America  with  many  criticisms  of  missionaries  and  society 
administrations.  I  had  had  grace  to  keep  them  mostly 
to  myself,  but  still  they  were  there,  a  discouragement  to 
interest  and  activity.  But,  as  now  I  have  seen  the 
work  and  workers  from  the  other  side,  most  of  such 
criticism  has  vanished,  and  this  is  my  glad  return  con- 
fession to  America. 


UPON   THE   NAKRAGANSETT. 


529 


CHAPTER  XXX. 


HOME  LAKD  SUGGESTIONS. 

,''E  were  glad  to  step  ashore.  A  fearful 
storm  had  raged  for  six  days.  The  cap- 
tain said  it  was  the  most  severe  he  had  ex- 
perienced in  crossing  the  Athintic  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty-six  times.  One  night  the 
situation  was  very  critical.  The  evening 
before  landing  a  number  of  the  passengers 
arranged  for  a  testimonial  to  the  captain,  but  they  in- 
sisted upon  an  unlimited  amount  of  wine  for  the  oc- 
casion ;  the  chairman  got  drunk,  and  the  aflair  was  a 
shame.  This  helped  to  our  impatience  to  land.  Then 
there  was  the  only  other  one  of  our  family  circle,  whom 
we  had  cabled  from  Liverpool  to  meet  us  at  the  New 
York  dock,  happy  as  happy  could  be  to  see  the  old  faces 
coming  down  the  gangway  plank.  A  few  days  at  the 
Gilsey  House,  exchanging  greetings  with  old  acquaint- 
ances of  New  York  and  Brooklyn,  followed  by  the  same 
experience  at  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  among  the 
beloved  parishioners  of  a  ten  years'  pastorate,  and  now, 
resting  for  awhile  in  our  own  home  upon  the  beautiful 
Narragansett,  I  am  reviewing  the  two  years'  around  the 
world  tour  of  Christian  Missions,  hoping  thus  to  con- 
tribute somethino'  to  the  o^lorious  cause. 

A  few  have  ])een  plying  us  about  the  expenses  of 
such  a  great  50,000  miles  journey,  and  have  even  sug- 
gested that,  as  the  purpose  was  in  the  interest  of  missions, 
it  might  have  been  better  to  sacrifice  the  tour  and  send 
the  money  to  the  missionaries.  As  to  the  cost  of  travel- 
ling, that  depends  upon  how  much  money  is  spent. 
It  is  like  ])uilding  a  house,  or  l)uying  a  farm.     Gener- 


530  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 

ally  speaking,  a  iJlimily,  starting  on  a  round  the  world  tour, 
should  l)e  provided  with  letters  of  credit  to  the  amount 
of  three  times  their  annual  living  expenses  at  home,  in- 
cluding every  outlay,  even  rent  of  dwelling  if  it  is 
owned.  As  to  the  other  suggestion,  I  have  noticed  that 
it  has  come  from  those  who  cannot  see  the  wisdom  of 
the  investment  of  any  considerable  portion  of  mission 
funds  anywhere  else  than  by  the  missionaries  themselves 
upon  their  own  fields.  They  belong  to  the  class  of 
people,  who  cannot  read  over  the  treasury  reports  of 
the  salaries  to  corresponding  and  assistant  secretaries, 
without  making  up  wry  faces.  "  What  is  the  use," 
they  say,  "of  paying  from  $3,000  to  $3,500  per  year  to 
a  treasurer  to  merely  forward  our  money  to  the  mission- 
aries? Let  those,  who  are  home  on  vacations  attend 
to  correspondence  and  to  the  banking ;  or,  at  least,  pay 
out  no  larger  salaries  than  those  given  to  the  mission- 
aries." Moreover,  they  say,  the  cost  of  publications 
can  be  saved  by  handing  in  all  important  items  to  the 
weekly  religious  press.  Now  all  this  is  a  mistake,  but 
it  will  not  do  to  disdainfully  ignore  the  suggestions,  for 
many  excellent  christian  people  of  large  influence  and 
deepl}'  interested  in  missions  entertain  such  views. 

In  each  society  the  departments  of  correspondence 
and  treasurership  require  the  services  of  talent  of  the 
very  highest  order.  The  secretary  should  command 
the  confidence  of  the  denomination,  as  a  man  of  broad 
views,  well  balanced  judgment,  general  knowledge  of 
]nen  and  aft  airs,  and  of  vigor  and  activity.  If  he  must 
be  a  minister,  as  they  all  are,  but  of  which  I  see  no 
necessity,  then  he  should  be  qualified  by  his  gifts  in 
public  address  to  fill  leading  pulpits.  The  treasurer 
should  be  one,  whose  business  position  in  secular  life 
would  be  quite  sure  to  be  above  that  of  a  mere  salaried 
situation.  He  should  be  able  not  only  to  count  money 
and  keep  books,  but  to  take  care  of  large  trust  funds, 
and  to  watch  the  executorship  of  estates  in  which  are 
bequests  to  the  cause  of  missions.  For  example,  the 
American  Board  treasury  held  a  httle  over  a  year  ago 
$188,552,32  of  permanent  funds,  and  of  securities  from 


EXECUTIVE    OFFICEES.  531 

the  Asa  Otis  legacy  —  appraised  value  $500,748.50, 
with  lien  on  a  large  portion  of  the  $97,000  in  U.  S. 
bonds  remaining  in  the  hands  of  the  Otis  executors. 
Evidently  no  man  is  equal  to  such  a  trust,  who  could  be 
hired  in  the  market  for  an  ordinary  missionary  salary. 
Put  nine  tenths  of  the  missionaries  in  the  treasurership 
of  such  responsibility,  Avith  receipts  and  expenditures  of 
nearly  half  a  million  dollars  annually,  coming  in  all 
sorts  of  shapes  and  entanglements,  and  it  is  no  slight 
upon  the  missionaries  to  say,  it  would  probably  take 
ten  times  as  much  as  would  be  saved  to  pay  the  lawyers' 
bills.  There  is  nothing  to  hinder  qualified  secretaries 
and  treasurers  of  our  mission  societies  giving  half,  or  all 
their  salaries  back,  if  they  are  able  and  so  disposed. 
But  if  they  come  under  the  rule  that  "  the  laborer  is 
worthy  of  his  hire,"  then  unquestionably  they  should 
receive  at  least  the  amounts  which  it  is  usual  to  pay, 
and  the  churches  are  to  be  congratulated  in  getting  the 
services  rendered  so  cheap.  Then,  after  all,  there  is  not 
such  a  great  disproportion  in  comparison  with  missionary 
salaries.  The  executive  oflScers  receive  no  house  rent, 
and  must  live  where  high  prices  are  paid.  They  must 
pay  their  own  expenses  in  vacations,  and  they  must 
provide  for  ten  times  as  much  hospitality  as  the  mission- 
ary. Their  office  is  not  an  easy  one,  for  they  are  con- 
stantly grumbled  at.  Multitudes  think,  and  many  say 
that  when  these  officials  ask  for  money,  they  are  begging 
for  their  own  support.  They  have  to  stand  the  whip- 
pings of  the  missionaries  for  all  the  delinquencies  of  the 
home  churches.  And  they  never  get  prayed  for  except 
at  the  anniversaries,  and  then  not  very  heartily.  We 
will  find,  when  we  get  to  heaven,  that  the  Lord  has 
appreciated  their  services  better  than  we  have. 

But  1  have  special  sympathy  for  the  district  secre- 
taries. They  used  to  be  called  agents,  but  it  has  not 
lifted  all  the  load  to  chans^e  the  title.  Such  men  as 
Rev.  J.  S.  Humphrey,  of  Chicago,  and  Rev.  R.  M. 
Luther,  of  Philadelphia,  are  doing  as  much  for  the 
heathen  as  any  missionary  in  Japan  or  Africa.  They 
are  working  up  a  mission  interest  among  hundreds  of 


532  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

indifferent  ministers  and  churches.  Many  little  dream 
what  hard  barren  soil  they  are  required  half  the  time  to 
cultivate.  If  all  ministers  would  do  their  own  duty, 
these  offices  would  become  unnecessary,  and  I  do  not 
believe  there  is  one  of  these  district  secretaries  but 
would  gladly  lay  down  his  task.  What  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  they  and  missionaries  and  the  majority  of 
ministers  are  in  for  a  living  I  Indeed,  the  home  depart- 
ment needs  another  agency,  a  sort  of  missionary  evan- 
gelist, to  go  to  central  points  throughout  the  country, 
holding  protracted  meetings  in  the  interest  of  a  mission 
revival.  He  would  need  to  have  special  gifts  and  funds 
of  information.  Perhaps,  after  the  example  of  Messrs. 
Moody  and  Sankey,  he  should  have  a  singer  to  accom- 
pany him,  and  together  they  should  preach  and  sing 
into  multitudes  the  missionary  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ, 
No  christian  life  is  complete  wdthout  the  missionary 
idea.  And  no  special  agency  would  bring  a  larger  bene- 
diction to  our  home  churches  and  their  ministry,  than 
one  which,  with  God's  blessing,  should  far  more  gener- 
ally impress  the  conviction,  warm  from  the  Divine  Mas- 
ter's own  heart,  that  all  christians  are  debtors  to  all 
men,  and  that,  as  possessors  of  the  glorious  Gospel,  they 
can  meet  their  obligation  only  by  doing  their  all  to 
preach  it  throughout  the  world. 

Through  these  and  other  agencies,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  the  missionary  concert, 
as  a  regular  a})pointment  upon  the  lirst  Sunday  evening 
of  each  month,  shall  become  as  generally  a  part  of 
church  work  as  is  the  Sunday-school.  If  the  scope  of 
the  meetino^  be  enlars^ed  to  embrace  all  home  as  well  as 
foreign  mission  work,  and  the  pastor  avails  himself  of 
his  opportunities,  and  thoroughly  prepares  for  the  occa- 
sion, and  a  few  of  the  leaders  among  the  laity  of  his 
church  will  likewise  interest  themselves,  there  is  every 
reason  why  these  Sabbath  evening  services  should.be  the 
best  attended,  the  most  instructive,  and  the  most  fruit- 
ful in  spiritual  results  of  any  of  the  year.  The  sources 
of  information  are  now  full}^  adequate  to  such  a  constant 
drain.     JNIissionary  literature  is  growing  rapidly  both 


SOURCES    OF   INFORMATION.  533 

in  quantity  and  quality.  The  regular  society  magazines 
and  papers  are  improving.  One  can  scarcely  recognize 
them  as  belonging  to  the  same  series  as  were  issued  ten 
years  ago.  They  are  worth  at  least  all  they  cost  the 
subscribers,  and  with  a  little  increase  in  circulation, 
which  the  ministry  ccmld  easily  secure  for  them,  they 
would  be  entirely  self-supportinir.  This  is  better  than 
to  depend  entirely  upon  the  weekly  religious  press.  It 
has  come  to  be  largely  secular  and  political,  as  seems 
necessary  and  best.  The  church  needs  this  help  to  see 
the  world  from  a  religious  standpoint.  It  is  impossible 
for  the  editor  to  meet  these  w\ants,  and  also  keep  qual- 
ified to  represent  the  vrhole  mission  field.  An  associate 
editor,  entirely  for  the  mission  department,  would  help 
materially,  but  he  would  require  to  have  immediate 
personal  access  to  missionary  correspondence  and  execu- 
tive deliberations  at  both  the  home  and  foreign  mission 
headquarters.  Not  all  denominational  papers  could 
command  such  services,  and  any  favoritism  would  cause 
alienation.  Assuredly  it  is  the  most  practicable  and 
desirable  for  each  mission  society  to  have  its  own  organs, 
through  which  to  conmiunicate  directly  with  the  public, 
using  also  the  vv'eekly  press,  as  far  as  possible,  grate- 
fully and  studiously.  I  believe  the  secular  press  also 
is  more  available  to  intelligent,  painstaking  efforts  at 
mission  information  than  appears  to  be  understood. 

It  is  lamentable  that  so  many  professed  christians  are 
practically  anti-mission.  At  times  I  should  almost  des- 
pair of  our  Christianity,  but  for  the  evidence  that  this 
is  chiefly  want  of  information.  This  does  not  excuse, 
however,  for  the  information  is  so  accessible.  Here 
ability  measures  responsi))ility  ;  so  also  as  to  what  can 
be  done,  for  the  needs  are  unlimited.  How  many  the 
motives  to  acquaint  ourselves  v\'illi  missions,  and  do  all 
we  can  to  support  them !  Obedience  to  the  direct 
commands  of  the  Master ;  desire  for  the  salvation  of 
souls  ;  interest  in  the  most  healthy  development  of  the 
home  church  ;  the  growth  and  fruitage  of  one's  own 
religious  character  ;  the  christian  impression  to  be  made 
upon  the  rising  generation  ;  patriotism  ;  —  and  there  are 


534  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 

many  other  motives  for  the  christian  to  empty  of  self, 
and  to  become  so  filled  with  Christ  as  to  be  practically 
interested  in  all  departments  of  world  evangelization. 
Thus  only  can  the  great  rising  tide  of  unbelief  in  certain 
directions  be  successfully  met.  The  secret  of  missionary 
consecration  is  Christ. 

The  call  at  present  from  nearly  all  the  mission  so- 
cieties is  very  urgent  for  young  men  qualified  and  ready 
to  go  forth  to  the  field.  Christian  homes  should  con- 
sider the  question,  if  there  is  a  son  or  daughter  there 
who  should  go?  Christian  teachers,  especially  of  those 
academies  and  colleges  and  theological  seminaries  es- 
tablished and  supported  by  the  money  of  the  Church, 
should  prayerfully  and  thoughtfully  lead  those  under 
their  care  to  the  intelligent  consideration  of  missionary 
duty.  If  a  young  man  has  the  necessary  qualifications, 
and  finds  upor  inquiry  that  he  has  vhn  opportunity  to 
go  as  a  missionary,  communion  with  God's  Spirit  in 
prayer  will  be  certain  to  fill  up  all  the  remaining  ele- 
ments of  "the  call,"  if  it  be  the  Divine  will.  It  is  well 
to  settle  this  question  early,  several  years  before  en- 
trance upon  the  work.  The  preparation  will  be  the 
more  likely  to  be  satisfactory,  even  also  for  the  home 
work,  if,  after  all,  compelled  to  remain.  As  has  been 
well  said :  "  A  sincere  regard  for  duty,  and  a  reso- 
lute pursuit  of  it,  are  far  less  likely  to  be  injurious  to  a 
man's  usefulness,  than  a  timorous  shrinking  from  re- 
sponsibility." 

As  to  missionary  qualifications,  the  manual  of  the 
American  Board  for  candidates  states  that  the}^  are  the 
same  ''  as  the  conditions  of  success  at  home  ;  an  unim- 
paired physical  constitution ;  good  intellectual  ability, 
well  disciplined  by  education,  and  if  possible  by  practi- 
cal experience  ;  good  sense,  sound  judgment  of  men 
and  things ;  versatility,  tact,  adaptation  to  men  of  all 
classes  and  circumstances  :  '  sanctified  common  sense  ; ' 
a  cheerful,  hopeful  spirit ;  ability  to  work  pleasantly 
with  others ;  persistent  energy  in  the  carrying  out  of 
plans  once  begun  :  —  all  controlled  by  a  single-hearted, 
self-sacrificing  devotion  to  Christ  and  His  cause. ^^     This 


THE    ENLISTMENT   FOR    THE    FIELD.  5o5 

excellent  manual  makes  mention  also  of  the  advantage 
of  oratorical  gifts,  of  facility  in  acquiring  a  foreign 
language,  and  of  the  necessity  of  a  good  character  among 
acquaintances.  Special  fitness  shown  in  actual  service 
for  moulding  character  is  suggested,  as  also  for  women 
a  practical  knowledge  of  domestic  work,  especially  of 
the  culinary  art.  Those  thus  qualified,  or  in  process 
for  such  qualification,  should  in  the  very  earliest  stages 
of  their  consideration  of  the  call  communicate  with 
pious  parents,  pastor  and  teacher,  and,  as  soon  as  their 
judgment  approves,  with  the  proper  secretary  of  their 
missionary  society.  Sufiicient  channels  of  counsel  will 
then  be  open,  and  the  Avay  will  be  made  plain.  I  will 
add  from  the  above  manual  the  item  reo-ardino:  mission- 
ary  physicians,  a  department  which  is  becoming  of  very 
great  importance.  ''  He  should  have  what  w^ould  in  this 
country  be  esteemed  a  competent  medical  education ; 
and  he  should  be  prepared  to  make  his  professional 
knowledge  and  skill  directly  subservient  to  the  further- 
ance of  the  gospel.  It  is  important  that  he  should  be 
acquainted  with  the  natural  sciences,  and  that  he  should 
be  well  read  in  christian  theology."  The  same  qualifi- 
cations, of  course,  are  needed  in  women  physicians. 

All  giving  to  missions,  whether  of  self,  or  money,  or 
influence,  should  be  at  the  prompting  of  that  highest  of 
all  motives,  for  Christ's  sake.  The  need  is  great,  and 
other  motives  are  numerous,  but  volunteers  will  be  too 
few,  treasury  deficits  will  continue,  a  dearth  of  mission 
interest  will  still  afflict  home  churches,  and  the  hearts 
of  the  laborers  will  drag  heavily,  all  in  proportion  as 
eyes  are  not  lifted  alcove  to  Him,  who  gave  Himself  for 
us.  In  His  .presence  all  diflSculties  vanish,  as  it  is  re- 
alized that  He  bore  the  Cross  once  for  all.  "  We  talk  of 
'sacrifices,'"  said  Livingstone,  "till,  we  fear,  the  word 
is  nauseous  to  Him.^' 

System  in  giving  cannot  be  too  strongly  recommended 
to  the  churches.  At  regular  intervals  every  member 
should  be  solicited.  The  "  envelope  system  "  has  been 
largely  tried,  and  found  to  work  well.  The  laying 
aside  and  gathering  up  every  Sabbath  has  the  sanction 


536  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

of  Holy  Writ,  and,  though  it  involves  more  labor  than 
some  other  methods,  is  accompanied  with  the  largest 
number  of  incidental  blessings  and  proves  to  realize  the 
largest  amounts  in  the  aggregate. 

It  is  well  for  those  who  would  be  intelligent  advo- 
cates of  the  cause  of  world  evangelization,  to  become 
familiar  with  the  obligation  of  science  to  missions.  A 
most  interesting  volume  might  ])e  written  upon  that  sub- 
ject. It  would  be  full  of  surprises  to  many,  who  have 
thought  of  the  results  of  missionary  labor  as  being 
found  only  in  chapels  and  schools.  In  philology  and 
ethnology  by  far  the  most  that  is  known  is  the  result  of 
missionary  labor  and  scholarship.  It  has  been  so  also 
with  geography  and  the  science  of  comparative  relig- 
ions. And  much  less  would  be  known  to-da}^  of  geol- 
ogy and  botany,  and  mineralogy  and  archaeology,  but  for 
the  contributions  of  the  missionaries.  Their  work  in 
these  directions  has  been  incidental,  l)ut  it  was  the  in- 
evitable result  of  locating  educated  intellect  in  so  many 
thousands  of  fields  ripe  for  discovery. 

All  that  the  home  churches  are  doing  for  missions 
does  not  pay  their  interest  upon  their  del)t  of  ol)ligation 
for  benefits  they  have  received  from  missions.  The 
roll  of  their  martyrs  has  been  greatly  lengthened. 
Faith  has  been  strengthened  and  unbelief  overcome  by 
the  numerous  and  marked  illustrations  of  consecration 
and  sacrifice  which  the  mission  cause  has  furnished. 
We  received  the  "  Week  of  Prayer  "  from  the  mission- 
aries. The  majority  of  the  great  tidal  waves  of  revived 
spirituality,  Avhich  have  swept  over  the  churches  of 
Protestant  lands,  have  come  from  the  direction  of  world 
wide  evangelization.  But  for  missions  Ave  would  be  far 
less  than  at  present  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  spirit  of  the 
Master,  which  was  announced  in  the  parable  of  "the 
ninety  and  nine." 

It  is  a  surprise,  a  cause  for  gratitude,  and  a  rich 
lesson  upon  the  providence  of  God,  to  find  how  almost 
universally  are  cared  for  those  who  become  dependent 
on  account  of  consecration  to  Christian  Missions.  Hun- 
dreds of  times  this  has  appeared,  as  missionaries  have 


WISEST   METHODS    CERTAIN   OF    OPPOSITION.         537 

told  me  of  invalided  associates  and  absent  children. 
But  the  Church  must  not  presume  upon  mysterious  pro- 
visions in  the  advancing  light  of  needs  and  resources. 
As  it  becomes  practicable,  God  throws  us  back  upon  the 
intelligent  use  of  instrumentalities.  For  example,  it  is 
well  to  inquire,  if  avail  should  be  made  for  our  mission- 
aries of  modern  life  insurance?  Or,  whether  a  susten- 
tation  fund  should  be  raised,  the  interest  of  which 
could  support  those  broken  down  in  mission  service? 
These  plans  have  been  suggested.  But  my  own  con- 
viction is  that  all  annual  expenses  had  better  be  kept 
upon  the  hearts  of  the  churches.  The  wisest  solution  is 
a  more  general  and  largely  increased  liberality  in  the 
annuah  contributions. 

The  chief  difficulty  in  the  Avay  of  prosecuting  missions 
is  that  which  always  hinders  the  Gospel,  the  natural 
opposition  of  the  human  heart.  Methods  may  be  ever 
so  wise,  but  they  must  give  offence  as  long  as  sin  still 
has  dominion  on  earth.  Within  the  Church  whatever 
opposition  to  God's  will  lingers  will  be  quite  sure  to 
crystallize  around  the  su]:)ject  of  mission  interests  in  the 
form  of  criticism  or  indifference,  because  missions  are 
so  central,  so  close  to  the  heart  of  Christ.  They  do  not 
occupy  the  position  of  home  church  activities,  Avhich  can 
so  easily  be  made  to  subserve  worldly  purposes. 

Churches  desire  revivals.  Tliey  suggest  protracted 
meetings,  and  inquire  for  evangelists.  Many  of  them 
had  better  subscribe  for  missionary  periodicals  and  go 
to  cultivating  an  intelligent  mission  spirit.  It  would  be 
the  most  direct  road  to  the  attainment  of  their  desire. 
Rev.  Andrew  Fuller  tells  us  that  his  church  was  once  in 
this  famished  condition  of  spiritual  life,  and  they  found 
no  salvation  except  in  becoming  identified  with  mission 
work.  His  preaching  was  famous  for  its  power,  but  it 
would  not  of  itself  overcome  the  selfishness  and  nar- 
rowness Avhich  came  to  be  generally  lamented,  and  only 
gave  way  when  attention  and  resources  were  enlisted  in 
the  external  advancement  of  the  Kedeemer's  Kingdom. 
Dr.  Ellinwood  rightly  commends  the  philosophy  of 
that  New  York  pastor,  who  thus  addressed  his  debt- 


538  CHEISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

struoforlino^  church :  "  ^Ye  have  so  much  to  do  amonfif 
ourselves,  that  we  cannot  afford  to  withdraw  from  the 
help  of  others  in  Christ's  name.  We  cannot  do  even 
our  own  work  selfish]}^  We  can  only  succeed  on  the 
higher  and  broader  principle  of  love  to  Christ  and  His 
common  cause."  Churches  need  to  enlist  in  the  foreign 
as  well  as  the  home  mission  work,  or  they  will  be  in 
that  languid  and  ineffective  condition  of  those  of  the 
Sandwich  Islands  in  1847.  Says  Dr.  Anderson:  "It 
was  found  there  as  it  has  been  in  our  country,  that  the 
motive  power  of  the  home  missionary  plea  alone  is  not 
of  itself  sufficiently  awakening  and  powerful.  In  short, 
it  was  painfully  certain  that  the  infant  churches  on  the 
Islands,  regarded  as  a  whole,  could  not  be  raised  to  the 
level  of  enduring  and  effective  working  churches  with- 
out a  stronger  religious  influence  than  could  be  brought 
to  act  upon  them  from  within  their  own  Christianized 
Islands.  It  was  also  evident  that  the  missionaries  them- 
selves then  needed  an  additional  motive  power,  beyond 
what  the  Islands  any  longer  afforded.  It  was  precisely 
this  discovery  —  for  discovery  it  was  —  which  gave  rise 
to  the  mission  to  Micronesia." 

With  every  year  now,  the  number  of  those  who  travel 
around  the  world  is  increasing.  They  go  to  see,  hear, 
and  enjoy,  and  come  back  to  report.  But  before  we 
accept  their  testimony  upon  any  sul^ject,  Ave  do  well  to 
inquire  as  to  what  have  been  their  opportunities  and 
qualifications  for  observation  in  the  given  line  of  inquiry. 
I  met  a  man,  who  had  nearly  completed  the  circuit  of 
the  globe,  who  was  a  graduate  of  one  of  our  leading 
colleges,  and  very  fair  in  his  general  judgments  of  men 
and  things.  Yet  questioning  him  upon  foreign  missions, 
the  reply  was,  that  beyond  all  controversy  they  were  a 
failure  and  an  imposition  upon  the  christian  public  at 
home.  But,  though  he  had  been  in  all  lands  in  the 
Orient,  he  had  never  called  upon  a  missionary,  had 
never  been  inside  of  a  mission  chapel  or  school,  and 
acknowledged  also  that  his  religious  interest  at  home 
was  limited  to  a  very  occasional  attendance  at  church, 
generally  when  he  heard  there  was  to  be   some  extra 


VALUABLE    TESTIMONY.  539 

singing.  Such  a  man's  testimony  on  missions,  notwith- 
standing a  round  world  tour,  is  absolutely  worthless. 

On  the  other  hand  let  me  summon  a  number  of  wit- 
nesses, whose  testimony  is  unquestionably  reliable. 
Lord  Lawrence  was  known  the  world  over  as  a  chris- 
tian, a  hero,  and  a  statesman.  He  was  thoroughly 
familiar  with  Lidia,  over  which  he  was  finally  appointed 
Governor- General.  He  w^as  the  only  viceroy  who  ever 
mastered  one  of  the  native  languages.  He  led  the 
troops  against  Delhi,  and  his  parting  counsel  at  Cal- 
cutta was  :  "Be  kind  to  the  natives."  This  is  his  testi- 
mony :  "  I  believe,  notwithstanding  all  that  the  English 
people  have  done  to  benefit  that  country  (India),  the 
missionaries  have  done  more  than  all  other  agencies 
combined."  ■ 

Admiral  Wilkes,  from  thorough  personal  acquaintance 
with  the  facts,  reports  :  "  As  a  proof  of  the  value  of 
missionary  labors.,  my  experience  w^arrants  me  in  saying 
that  the  natives  of  Tahiti,  once  given  to  perpetual  intes- 
tine broils  and  the  worship  of  idols  propitiated  by 
human  sacrifices,  are  now  honest,  w^ell-behaved,  and 
obliging ;  that  no  drunkenness  or  rioting  is  seen,  except 
when  provoked  by  white  visitors,  and  that  they  are  obe- 
dient to  the  laws  and  to  their  rulers." 

Hon.  Eichard  H.  Dana,  after  a  visit  to  the  Sandwich 
Islands  in  1860,  is  quoted  by  Dr.  Ellinwood  as  saying : 
"  AYhereas  the  missionaries  found  these  islanders  a  na- 
tion of  half-naked  savages,  living  in  the  surf  and  on  the 
sand,  eating  raw  fish,  fighting  among  themselves,  tyran- 
nized over  by  feudal  chiefs,  and  abandoned  to  sensuality  ; 
they  now  see  them  decently  clothed,  recognizing  the 
laws  of  marriage,  going  to  school  and  church  with  more 
regularity  than  our  people  do  at  home,  and  the  more 
elevated  portion  of  them  taking  part  in  the  constitu- 
tional monarchy  under  wdiich  they  live."  This  same 
witness  continues  :  "  The  mere  seekers  of  pleasure, 
power  or  gain,  do  not  like  the  missionary  influence." 
"  Tliose  who  sympathize  ivith  that  officer  of  the  Ameri- 
can navy,  loho  compelled  the  authorities  to  alloiu  icomen 
to  go  off  to  his  ship  by  opening  his  ports  and  threaten- 


540  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ing  to  bombard  the  town,  are  naturally  hostile  to  mis- 
sions.'' 

Rev.  E.  D.  G.  Prime,  D.D.,  of  the  New  York  Ob- 
server, is  also  cited  :  ''  After  having  embraced  every 
opportunity  for  becomino'  acquainted  with  the  Christian 
laborers  from  every  land,  and  with  their  work,  I  re- 
turned with  a  higher  estimate  than  I  ever  had  before  of 
the  ability,  learning,  and  devotion  of  the  missionaries 
as  a  class  and  as  a  whole ;  with  an  enlarged  view  of 
w^hat  has  already  been  accomplished,  and  with  a  pro- 
founder  conviction  that  through  this  instrumentality,  or 
that  which  shall  immediately  grow  out  of  it,  the  king- 
dom of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  is  to  be  established  in  the 
whole  earth  more  speedily  than  the  weak  ftiith  of  the 
Church  has  dared  even  to  hope."  He  adds  :  ''  The  suc- 
cess of  Christian  Missions  nothiiig  but  ignorance  or  prej- 
udice could  call  in  question.  What  has  actually  been 
accomplished  can  be  fully  appreciated  only  by  those 
who  have  been  upon  the  ground,  and  who  have  wit- 
nessed the  condition  of  pagan  nations." 

Greatly  are  we  to  be  congratulated  who  live  with  our 
eyes  open  and  our  hearts  warm  toward  the  mission 
cause.  Life  is  vastly  enriched  with  the  information 
thus  gained,  and  the  wealth  of  emotion  thus  secured. 
All  over  the  world  there  are  movements  conspiring  to 
the  encouragement  of  evangelization.  Home  and  for- 
eign missions  are  continually  coming  into  new  relations 
to  the  various  conditions  and  changes  in  human  society. 
But,  as  has  been  truly  said :  "  So  far  as  our  work  is 
concerned,  they  are  changes  from  weakness  to  strength  ; 
from  inexperience  to  confidence  ;  from  discouragement 
to  hope  ;  from  slow  progress  to  swift  advance ;  from 
seeming  failure  to  certain  success." 

It  is  bewildering  to  contemplate  the  possibilities,  nay, 
the  probabilities  of  the  coming  century.  Our  western 
states,  which  will  have  succeeded  the  territories,  filled 
with  a  dense  population,  and  everywhere  enjoying  relig- 
ious privileges  equal  to  those  at  present  throughout 
Massachusetts,  New  York  and  Pennsylvania.  Our 
millions  of  colored  fellow-citizens,  an  educated  and  in- 


THE  DAWNING  CENTURY.  541 

telliofently  christian  part  of  our  vast  repu])lic,  worthy 
of  the  franchise,  and  roficcliiif^;  unquestioned  honor  upon 
the  nation.  South  America,  freed  from  its  degraded 
bondage  to  Rome,  and  working  its  way  into  true  lib- 
erty. Great  Britain,  truer  to  her  Protestantism,  and 
kindling  still  brighter  evangelical  light  in  all  her  colo- 
nies. Europe,  with  arbitration  substituted  for  her  co- 
lossal armies,  with  civil  and  religious  liberty  every- 
where, with  the  political  power  of  Islam  banished ; 
Germany,  as  evangelical  at  least  as  England  to-day; 
and  mighty  evangelical  movements  within  both  the 
Greek  and  Eoman  communions.  Africa,  all  through 
its  vast  interior,  more  thoroughly  occupied  by  missions 
and  impressed  by  Christianity  than  even  India  at 
present,  nmltitudes  there  and  in  Asia  having  exchanged 
the  Crescent  for  the  Cross,  and  the  leadership  of  Ma- 
homet for  that  of  Christ, — the  true  prophet.  The 
odious  opium  traffic  abolished  as  far  as  concerns,  at 
least,  the  responsibility  of  Great  Britain  in  China. 
Japan,  a  Christianized  nation.  Buddhism  and  Brah- 
manism  withering  under  the  scorn  of  enlightened  public 
sentiment.  Indeed,  the  prospect  is  glorious !  The 
vision  is  not  too  bright  to  loom  above  the  horizon  of 
the  present.  We  do  not  anticipate  that  a  century  will, 
by  any  means,  usher  in  the  ^Millennium  ;  but  it  is  rea- 
sonable to  anticipate  all  these  grand  consummations,  with 
many  others,  such  as  a  decided  check  to  the  evil  of  in- 
temperance, an  overwhelming  advance  upon  scientific 
unbelief,  and  the  attainment  of  a  far  higher  spiritual 
life  among  the  myriad  ranks  of.  the  Universal  Church. 
Very  ftir  yet,  doubtless,  will  the  Saviour's  travail  of 
soul  be  from  being  satisfied ;  but  the  signs  of  the  times 
are  full  of  promise  that  the  century  before  us  is  better 
for  advance  than  even  the  one  behind. 

In  parting,  let  us  retrace  our  journeyings  together, 
almost  half-way  round  the  world.  We  are  in  a  suburb 
of  Calcutta,  at  the  temple  of  Kali  Ghat.  Multitudes 
are  sacrificing  to  the  hideous  goddess.  The  ground 
streams  with  blood,  in  which  the  devotees  roll  them- 
selves before  prostration  at  the  feet  of  Kali.    The  fright- 


542  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

ful  black  statue  reaches  out  its  tongue,  red  with  freshly 
applied  blood,  its  necklace  of  inlknt  skulls,  its  hands 
holding  a  knife,  a  bleeding  heart  and  a  skull.  In  the 
surrounding  chapels  the  deified  organs  of  lust !  The 
place  is  too  horrible,  yet  it  tells  the  dreadful  story  of 
170,000,000  of  souls.  We  spring  into  our  carriage, 
and  hasten  from  this  mouth  of  hell  to  the  chief  Christian 
church  edifice  of  the  city.  O,  what  a  relief!  We  seem 
here  to  breathe  the  atmosphere  of  heaven.  Through 
the  nave,  around  the  altar,  beyond  the  transept.  We  are 
arrested  by  a  noble  statue.  The  face  reflects  the  Mas- 
ter's. And  as  we  read  upon  the  tal)let  the  name  of  the 
honored  missionary.  Bishop  Reginald  Heber,  the  light 
breaks  through  the  stained  Avindow  and  falls  upon  the 
statue,  and  it  speaks,  — like  another  Memnon  it  speaks 
—  not  mere  sound ;  words,  —  familiar  words  of  his 
grand  old  missionary  hymn  :  — 

"Can  we,  whose  souls  are  lighted 

With  wisdom  from  on  high, 
Can  we  to  men  benighted 

The  lamj)  of  life  deny  ? 
Salvation !  O  salvation ! 

The  joyful  sound  proclaim. 
Till  each  remotest  nation 

Has  learnt  Messiah's  name. 

*'  Waft,  waft,  ye  winds,  his  story. 

And  you,  ye  waters,  roll. 
Till  like  a  sea  of  glory 

It  spreads  from  pole  to  pole ; 
Till  o'er  our  ransomed  nature 

The  Lamb  for  sinners  slain, 
Redeemer,  King,  Creator, 

In  bliss  returns  to  reign." 


appb:n^dix 


A  LIST  OF   CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


L— HOME   AND   FOREIGN   MISSIONS  OF   UNITED  STATES 
OF   AMERICA. 

a.    AMERICAN  HOME  MISSION  SOCIETIES. 


The  American  Baptist  Home  Missionary  Society.     Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  Henry  L 

Morehouse,  D.D.,  Mission  Rooms,  Astor  House,  New  York  city. 
Woman's  American  Boptist  Home  Mission  Society.    Cor.  Sec'y,  Miss  S.  B. 

Packard,  4  Beacon  Street,  Boston,  Mass. 
The  Woman's  Baptist  Home  ^Mission  Society.    Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs.  C.  Swift,  71 

Randolph  Street,  Chicac^o,  111. 
The  American  Baptist  Publication  Societ}\     Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  B.  Griffith,  D.  D., 

Miss.  Sec'y,  Rev.  G.  J.  Johnson,  D.  D.,  1420  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia, 

Penn. 
Home  Mission  Board  of  the  Southern  Baptist  Convention.    Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev. 

W.  H.  Mcintosh,  Marion,  Alabama. 
American  and  Foreign  Bible  Society.     Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  J.  N.  Folwell,  116 

Nassau  Street,  New  York. 
The  Conference  of  German  Baptist  Churches  of  the  East.     Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev. 

G.  A.  Schults,  New  York  city. 
The  Conference  of  German  Baptist  Churches  of  the  West.    Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev. 

H.  L.  Deitz,  Peoria,  111. 
Baptist  Missionaiy  Convention  or  Association  in  nearly  every  State. 

CHRISTIAN. 

Creneral  Convention  of  the  Christian  Church,  Home  and  Foreign  Missions.  A 
station  each  in  France,  Denmark,  Turkey  and  Jamaica.  Auxiliary 
Woman's  Society.  Cor.  Sec'y,  F.  M.  Green,  180  Elm  Street,  Cincinnati, 
Ohio. 

C  ONGRE  GATIONAL . 

American  Missionaiy  Association.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  M.  E.  Strieby,  56  Reade 
Street,  New  York  city.     Twenty-six  Freedmen's  Schools,  6000  pupils. 

American  Home  Missionaiy  Society.  Sec'ys,  Rev.  D.  B.  Coe,  D.  D.,  Rev. 
H.  M.  Storrs,  D.  D.,  Bible  House,  New  York  city. 

EPISCOPAJL. 

Domestic  Department  of  Missionary  Society  of  Protestant  Episcopal  Church. 
Sec'y,  Rev.  A.  T.  Twing,  Bible  House,  New  York. 

LUTHERAN. 

Board  of  Home  Missions  of  the  General  Svnod  Evangelical  Church.  Sec'y, 
Rev.  J.  W.  Goodlin,  York,  Penn. 

Executive  Committee  on  Home  Missions  General  Council  Evangelical  Lu- 
theran Clmrch. 

Committee  on  New  York  Immigrant  Mission. 


544  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

t 

METHODIST. 

The  Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Department  of 
Domestic  Missions,  Mission  Buildintr,  805  Broadway,  New  York. 

Freedmau's  Aid  Society  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  "Western  Method- 
ist Book  Concern,  IViO  W.  Fourth  Street,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

Board  of  Missions  of  the  Methodibt  Protestant  Church.  Cor.  See'y,  Rev.  C. 
H.  Williams,  Springfield,  Ohio. 

PRESBYTERIAN. 

Board  of  Home  Missions   of    the  Presbyterian  Church.     Cor.   Sec'ys,  Rev. 

Hemy  Kendall,  Rev.  Cyrus  Dickson,  23  Centre  Street,  New  York  city. 
Presbyterian  Board  of  Missions  for  Freedmen,  33  Fifth  Avenue,  Pittsburg, 

Penn. 
Executive  Committee  of  Home  Missions  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 

United  States  (South).     Sec'y,  Rev.  J.  Leighton  Wilson,  111  N.  Charles 

Street,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Board  of  Domestic  Missions  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  America.     Cor.  Sec'y, 

Rev.  Jacob  West,  Si  Vesey  Street,  New  York  city. 
Board  of  Foreign  and   Domestic    Missions  of  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian 

Church.     Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  E.  B.  Crisman,  44  Insurance  Building,  corner 

Sixth  and  Locust  Streets,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 

UNITED   BRETHREN. 

Home  and  Frontier  Department  of  Mission  Society  of  United  Brethren  (Mora- 
vian).   Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  D.  K.  Flickinger,  Dayton,  Ohio. 

UNDENOMINATIONAL. 

American  Bible  Society,  Bible  House,  New  York  city. 

Pacific  Garden  Mission,  S.  E.  cor.  Clark  and  Van  Buren  Streets,  Chicago,  lU. 

American  Colonization  Society,  450  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  Washington,  D.  C. 

American  and  Foreign  Christian  Union,  45  Bible  House,  New  York  city. 

Amei-ican  Tract  Society.     150  Nassau   Street,  New  York.     Income,  $'375,000. 

American  Sunday  School  Union.  1122  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia,  Penn., 
and  Bible  House,  New  York  city. 

Young  Men's  Christian  Associations. 

National  Temperance  Society  and  Publication  House,  Cor.  Sec'y,  J.  N.  Stearns, 
58  Reade  Street,  New  York  city. 

Mission  Societies  to  the  Seamen  :  80  Wall  Street,  New  York  city.  Mariner's 
House,  North  Square,  Boston,  Mass.  New  Bedford,  Mass.,  Rev.  J.  D. 
Butler,  Cor.  Sec'y  Corner  Front  and  Dock  Streets,  Wilmington,  Del. 
Sailor's  Home,  Charleston,  S.  C.  422  S.  Front  Street,  Philadelphia,  Penn. 
Seamen's  Bank  for  Savings,  cor.  Wall  and  Water  Streets,  New  York.  55 
S.  Broadway,  Baltimore,  Mtl.  16  Deer  Street,  Portsmouth,  N.  H.  Nor- 
folk, Va.,  Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  E.  N.  Crane.  Mobile,  Ala.,  Sec'y,  D.  L. 
Ogden.  Corner  Harrison  and  Main  Streets,  San  Francisco,  Cal.  Cor. 
Third  and  D  Streets,  Portland,  Oregon.  Cleveland,  Ohio,  Sec'y,  E.  C. 
Pope.    Cor.  Lake  and  Desplaines  Streets,  Chicago,  111. 

b.    AMERICAN  FOREIGN  MISSION  SOCIETIES. 

BAPTIST. 

American  Baptist  Missionary  Union.    Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  J.  N.  Murdock,  D.D., 

Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  Mass.    Number  of  Missionaries,  171 ;  income, 

$300,000 ;  communicants,  85,308. 
Foreign  Mission  Board  Southern  Baptist  Convention.     Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  H.  A. 

Tupper,   D.D.,   Richmond,  Va.     Number   of    missionaries,   19;    income, 

$50,043  ;  Conv.  Home  Dep.  34  missionaries. 
Free  Will  Baptist  Missionary  Society.     Cor.   Sec'y,  Rev.  C.  S.  Perkins,  24 

Monument  Avenue,  Charlestown,  Mass.     Number  of  missionaries,  16. 
Woman's  Baptist  Missionary  Society.     Cor.  Sec'ys,  Mrs.  Alvah  Hovey,  Miss 

Mary  E.  Clarke,  Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  Mass.    Income,  $55,184. 


APPENDIX.  ♦         545 

Woman's  Baptist  Missionary  Society  of  the  West.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs.  A.  M. 
Bacon,  Oak  Park,  111.     Income,  $18,882. 

Woman's  Baptist  INIissionary  Society  of  the  Pacific  Coast.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs. 
G.  S.  Abhott,  San  Francisco,  Cal." 

Fi-ee  Baptist  Woman's  Missionary  Society.  Income,  $5,009.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs. 
J.  A.  Lowell,  Danville,  N.  H. 

Seventh-Day  Baptist  Missionary  Society,  Ashaway,  E..  I.  Number  of  mis- 
sionaries, 3 ;  income,  $3,005. 

CONGREGATIONAL. 

American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Forei^cn  Missions.  Cor.  Sec'ys,  Rev. 
N.  G.  Clark,  D.  D.,  Ptev.  E  K.  Alden,  D.  D.,  Rev.  J.  O.  Means,  D.  D., 
Congregational  House,  1  Somerset  Street,  Boston,  Mass.  Number  of  mis- 
sionaries, 416;  income,  $430,752.46;  communicants,  17,165. 

American  Missionary  Association.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  M.  E.  Strieby,  56  Reade 
Street,  New  York  city.  Foreign  Department,  13  missionaries;  income, 
$11,802. 

W^oman's  Board  of  Missions.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Miss  Abbie  B.  Child,  Congrega- 
tional House,  Boston,  Mass.     Income,  $104,346. 

AVoman's  Board  of  Missions  of  the  Interior.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Miss  Han'iet  S. 
Ashley,  75  Madison  Street,  Chicago.     Income,  $22,000. 

Woman's  Board  of  Missions  for  the  Pacific.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs.  H.  E.  Jewett, 
Oakland,  Cal. 

PROTESTANT   EPISCOPAL. 

The  Domestic  and  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  the  United  States  of  America.  Foreign  Sec'y,  Rev.  Joshua 
Kimber,  23  Bible  House,  New  York  city.  Number  of  missionaries,  47 ; 
income,  $162,084;  communicants,  4,549. 

Woman's  Auxiliarv  to  the  Board  of  Missions.  Sec'y,  Miss  Julia  C.  Emery, 
21  Bible  House,'  New  York.     Income,  $18,335. 

FRIENDS. 

Executive  Committee  on  Foreign  Missions.  Sec'y,  Timothy  Harrison,  Rich- 
mond, Ind.    Number  of  missionaries,  21 ;  income,  $35,985 ;  members,  3,448. 

LUTHERAN. 

Board  of  Foreign  Missions  General  Synod  Evangelical.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev. 
Jacob  A.  Clutz,  437  N.  Carey  Street,  Baltimore,  Md.  Number  of  mis- 
sionaries, 9 ;  income,  $19,469;  communicants,  2100. 

Children's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  same.  Sec'y,  Mr.  Samuel  W. 
Harman,  73  W.  Fayette  Street,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Executive  Committee  on  Foreign  Missions  General  Council  Evangelical 
Lutlicran  Church.  Sec'y,  Rev.  B.  M.  Schmucker,  Reading,  Penn.  Num- 
ber of  missionaries,  3;  income,  $4,126;  communicants,  200. 

Woman's  Missionary  Society^!.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs.  Dr.  Alstead,  Harrisburg, 
Penn. 

METHODIST. 

The  Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  Cor.  Sec'ys, 
Rev.  J.  M.  Reid,  Rev.  C.  H.  Fowler,  Mission  Building,  805  Broadway, 
New  York.  Foreign  Department,  number  of  missionaries,  203 ;  income, 
$300,000;  communicants,  27,405. 

Board  of  Missions  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  South.  Cor.  Sec'y, 
Rev.  A.  W.  Wilson,  Nashville,  Tenn.  Number  of  missionaries,  8;  income, 
$20,000. 

Board  of  Missions  of  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  Number  of  missionaries, 
2.     See  Home  Mission  Societies. 

Parent  Home  and  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the  African  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Chui-ch.     Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  J,  M.  Townsend,  Richmond,  Ind. 

Missionai-y  Society  of  the  Evangelical  Association  (Albright  Methodists). 
Cor.  Sec'y,  Rev.  S.  L.  West,  216  Woodland  Avenue,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the  M.  E.  Church.  Income,  $76,350. 
New  England  Branch,  Sec'y,  Mrs.  M,  P.  Alderman,  Hyde  Park,  Mass. 


546  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

New  York  Branch,  Sec'v,  INIrs.  W.  B.  Skidmore,  9  East  Seventeenth  Street, 
New  York.  Philadelphia  Branch,  Sec'v,  Mrs.  J.  F.  Keen,  1209  Arch 
Street,  Philadelphia.  Baltimore  Branch*  Sec'y,  Miss  I.  Hart,  176  N.  Cal- 
vert Street,  Baltimore.  Cincinnati  Branch,  Sec'y,  Mrs.  B.  R.  Cowen, 
Delaware,  Ohio.  Northwestern  Branch,  Sec'y,  Mrs.  J.  F.  Willing,  147 
Throop  Street,  Chicago.  Western  Bi-anch,  Sec'y,  Mrs.  L.  E.  Prescott, 
1025  Western  Avenue,  Minneapolis,  Minn.  Atlanta  Branch,  Sec'y,  Mrs. 
E.  O.  Fuller,  Atlanta,  Ga. 

Woman's  Missionary  Society  of  the  Pacific  Coast.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs.  J. 
Walker,  916  Washington  Street,  San  Francisco,  Cal. 

Woman's  Missionary  Society  of  the  M.  E.  Church  South.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs. 
D.  H.  McGavock,  Nashville,  Tenn.     Income,  $16,466. 

Woman's  Missionarv  Societv  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church.  Cor.  Sec'y, 
Mrs.  N.  B.  O'Neill,  Pittsburg,  Peun. 

Woman's  Parent  Mite  Society  of  the  African  M.  E.  Church.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs. 
J.  A.  Knight,  Philadelphia. 

PRESBYTERIAN. 

Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Cor.  Sec'ys,  Rev.  J. 
C.  Lowrie,  D.D.,  Rev.  David  Irving,  D.D.,  Rev.  F.  Ellinwood,  D.D., 
Mission  House,  23  Centre  Street,  New  York.  Number  of  missionaries, 
345;  income,  $585,844;  communicants,  12,607. 

Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the  United  Presbvterian  Church.  Cor.  Sec'y, 
Rev.  J.  B.  Dales,  D.  D.,  136  N.  Eighteenth  "Street,  Philadelphia.  Num- 
ber of  missionaries,  44 ;  income,  $60,089 ;  communicants,  1289. 

Executive  Committee  of  Foreign  Missions  of  Presbyterian  South.  Sec'y,  Rev. 
J.  L.  Wilson,  111  N.  Charles  Street,  Baltimore,  Md.  Number  of  mis- 
sionaries, 36 ;  income,  $48,485. 

Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  America.  Cor.  Sec'y, 
Rev.  J.  M.  Ferris,  32  Vesey  Street,  New  York  city.  Number  of  mission- 
aries, 37;  income,  $63,185;  communicants,  2341. 

Board  of  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church.  See  Home  Missions.  Foreign 
Department,  number  of  missionaries,  6 ;  income,  $4,285 ;  communicants, 
750. 

Board  of  Missions  of  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church  (colored).  Sec'y, 
M.  C.  Cooper,  Springfield,  Mo. 

Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Cor. 
Sec'v,  Mrs.  A.  L.  Massey,  1334  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia.  Income, 
$127',352. 

Woman's  Presbyterian  Board  of  Missions  of  the  North-west.  Cor.  Sec'y, 
Mrs.  G.  H.  Laflin,  1614  Michigan  Avenue,  Chicago.     Income,  $33,000. 

Ladies'  Board  of  Missions  of  the  Presbvterian  Church.  Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs.  W. 
P.  Prentice,  9  W.  Sixteenth  Street,  New  York.    Income,  $35,924. 

Woman's  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the  Synod  of  Albany. 
Sec'y,  Miss  Anna  Anderson,  21  Ten  Broeck  Street,  Albany,  N.  Y. 

Woman's  Presbyterian  Board  for  the  Southwest.     Sec'y,  Mrs.  S.  N.  Crandall. 

Woman's  Missibnaiy  Society  of  Brooklyn,  171  Columbia  Heights,  Brooklyn, 

United  Presbyterian  Ladies'  Missionary'  Societies.    Income,  $3,664. 

Woman's  Board  of  Foreign  Missions'  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  America. 
Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs.  J.  Sturges,  Newark,  N.  J.    Income,  $13,455. 

The  Woman's  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian 
Church.    Sec'y,  Mrs.  D.  S.  Ragon,  Evansville,  Ind. 

Associate  Reformed  Synod  of  the  South,  136  N.  Eighteenth  Street,  Phila- 
delphia.    Number  of  missionaries,  3. 

Reformed  Presbyterian  Church.    Number  of  missionaries,  3;  income,  $8,577; 

UNITED   BRETHREN    (MORAVIAN). 

Foreign  Department  of  Mission  Society.     See  Home  Department. 
Woman's  Missionarv  Society  of  the  United  Brethren.     Cor.  Sec'y,  Mrs.  B. 
Marot,  Dayton,  Ohio.    Income,  $4,869.  , 


AFPEXDIX.  547 


UNDENOMINATIONAL. 

American  Bible  Society.    Cor.  Sec'y,  E.  W.  Oilman,  Bible  House,  New  York 
city.     In  1880  spent  on  foreign  field,  $93,963 ;  11  Agencies  in  foreign  lands. 

American  and  Foreign  Christian  Union,  45  Bible  House,  New  York  city. 

Woman's  Union  Missionary  Society.     Cor.  Sec'y,  Miss  S.  D.  Doremus.  47  E 
Twenty-first  Street,  New  York.  $33,127.  u^,  */  i^. 

American  Tract  Society  spent  on  foreign  field,  1880,  #7,221. 

II.— HOME  AND  FOKEIGN  MISSIONS  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

a.    BRITISH  HOME  MISSION  SOCIETIES. 

Additional  Home  Bishoprics  Endowment  Fund. 

Bishop  of  London's  Fund. 

Bishop  of  St.  Alban's  Fund. 

British  and  Irish  Baptist  Home  Mission. 

Christian  Association  and  London  Young  Women's  Institute  Union. 

Christian  Community. 

Christian  Evidence  Society. 

Christian  Instruction  Society. 

Christian  Workers'  Mission. 

Church  Association. 

Church  Home  Mission. 

Church  of  England  Scripture-Readers'  Association. 

Church  of  England  Young  Men's  Society. 

Church  Pastoral  Aid  Society. 

Congregational  Church  Aid  and  Home  Missionary  Society. 

Costermongers'  Cottage  Mission. 

Country  Towns  Mission  Society. 

Cow  Cross  Mission. 

East  End  Juvenile  Mission. 

English  Church  Union. 

Evangelization  Society. 

George  Yard  Mission. 

Golden  Lane  Mission. 

Gospel  Missions. 

Irish  Evangelical  Society  and  Congregational  Home  Mission. 

Irish  Society  for  Promoting  Scriptural  Knowledge. 

London  Auxiliary  of  the  Scottish  Episcopal  Church  Society. 

London  Bible  and  Domestic  Female  Mission. 

London  City  Mission. 

London  Diocesan  Home  Mission. 

London  Diocesan  Lay  Helpers'  Association. 

London  Domeistc  Mission  Society. 

London  Medical  Mission. 

Mildmay  Institutions. 

Mission  among  the  German  Poor  in  London. 

Open  Air  Mission. 

Operative  Jewish  Convei'ts'  Institution. 

Parochial  Mission  Women  Fund. 

Prayer-Book  and  Homily  Society. 

Protestant  Alliance. 

Protestant  Reformation  Society. 

Ragged  Church  and  Chapel  tFnion. 

St.  Clement  Danes  Mission. 

Society  for  the  Evangelization  of  Foreigners  in  London. 

Scripture  Readers'  Society  for  Ireland. 

Society  for  Irish  Church  Missions  to  the  Roman  Catholics. 

Society  for  Promoting  the  Employment  of  Additional  Curates. 

Society  for  the  Promotion  of  the  Observance  of  the  Lord's  Day. 


548  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Special  Relio:ious  Services  for  the  People. 

Sunday  Rest  Association. 

Tliomas  Church  Mission. 

The  Irish  Society  (Church  of  Ireland). 

Free  and  Open  Chui-ch  Association. 

Tower  Hamlets  Mission. 

Wesleyan  Home  Mission  and  Contingent  Fund. 

Worki'uirmen's  Lord's  Day  Rest  Association. 

Youiil;-  Men's  Christian  Associations. 

Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge  to  the  Islands  and  Highlands  of 

Scotland. 
Church  of  Scotland  Committee  on  Home  Missions. 
Free  Church  of  Scotland  Highland  Mission. 
Baptist  and  Home  Missionary  Society  for  Scotland. 

Mission  Societies  to  the  Seamen:  — 

St.  Andrew's  Waterside  Church  INIission,  Church  of  England. 

Church  of  England  Scripture  Readers'  Association. 

'Army  Scripture  Readers'  and  Soldiers'  Friend  Society. 

Royal  Naval  Scripture  Readers'  Society. 

Wesleyan  Seamen's  Mission. 

Missions  to  Seamen. 

British  and  Foreign  Sailors'  Society. 

Seamen's  Christian  Friend  Society. 

Sailors'  Rests  and  Homes. 

Bible,  Book,  and  Tract  Mission  Societies: —  - 

British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society. 

National  Bible  Society  of  Scotland. 

Trinitarian  Bible  Society. 

Naval  and  Military  Bible  Society. 

Hibernian  Bible  Society. 

Religious  Tract  Society. 

Society  for  Promoting"  Christian  Knowledge. 

Baptist  Tract  Society. 

Book  Society. 

Dr.  Bray's  Associates. 

Pure  Literature  Society. 

Christian  Colportage  Association. 

Christian  Book  Society. 

Hussey's  Book  Charity. 

Monthly  Tract  Society. 

Weekly  Tract  Society. 

Bible  and  Colportage  Society  of  Ireland  (Presbyterian). 

Association  for  the  Free  Disti'ibution  of  the  Scriptures. 


COLONIAL   home   missions. 

Regular  Baptist  Missionary  Convention  of  Ontario. 

Canada  Baptist  Missionary  Convention,  East. 

Evangelical  Society  of  La  Grande  Linge  in  the  Province  of  Quebec. 

Toronto  Baptist  Missionary  Union. 

Manitoba  Mission. 

The  Canada  Congregational  Missionary  Society. 

The  Canada  Congregational  Indian  Missionary  Society. 

The  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick  Missionary  Society. 

Newfoundland  Congregational  Home  Missionary  Society. 

Domestic  Missions  of  Church  of  Ens'land  in  Canada. 

The  Missionary  Society  of  the  Metliodist  Clmrch  of  Canada. 

The  Missionary  Society  of  the  Primitive  Methodist  Chiu'ch  in  Canada. 


APPENDIX.  549 

The  Ontario  Missionaiy  Society  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  Canada. 

Home  Mission  Committee  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Canada. 

The  Godavery  Delta  Mission,  India.  "Number  of  missionaries,  4 ;  communi- 
cants, 300. 

Strict  Baptist  Mission,  Madras.  Number  of  missionaries,  2 ;  communicants, 
107. 

The  Seoni  Mission,  India.     One  missionary. 

The  Elliehpoor  Mission,  India.     One  missionary  and  twenty  communicants. 

Bethel  Mission,  Jomtera,  India.     One  missionary  and  fifteen  communicants. 

Assam  and  Cachar  Mission  Department,  now  of  Delhi.  Female  Medical 
Mission.     Number  of  missionaries,  2;  communicants,  61. 

Ponape'  Missionary  Society. 

Anglo-Indian  Evangelical  Association. 

Gopalgunje  Mission.     One  missionary. 

Chota  Nagpore  Mission,  India. 

Delhi  Female  Medical  Mission. 

Kolapore  Mission,  India. 

The  India  Home  Mission  to  the  Santals. 

Karen  Home  Missionary  Society,  Burmah. 

Palestine  Christian  Union. 

Bishop  Gobat's  Mission. 

Palestine  Mission. 

South  African  Missionary  Society. 

Cape  Town  Aid  Association. 

McKenzie's  Memorial  Mission. 

Melanesian  Missionary  Society  at  Auckland. 

Missionary  Society  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  South  Australia. 

Various  Australian  Home  Missions.  • 

Various  Home  Missions  of  British  West  Indies. 

Reformed  Church  of  Cape  Colony  Missions. 

Cape  Colony  Missionary  Society. 

Sierra  I^eone  Missionary  Society. 

Madagascar  Missionary  Society. 

6.    BRITISH  FOREIGN  MISSION  SOCIETIES. 

BAPTIST. 

Baptist  Missionary  Society.     Number  of  ordained  missionaries,  86 ;   income, 

£45,233  ;  communicants,  33,805. 
Genei*al  Baptist  Missionary  Society.    Number  of  missionaries,  16;   income, 

£8,727 ;  communicants,  994. 
Palestine  Mission. 

Ladies'  Association  for  the  Support  of  Zenana  Work  in  India. 
Bible  Translation  Society. 

CONGREGATIONAL. 

The  London  Missionary  Society.     Number  of  missionaries,  255;  income, 

£105,409;  communicants,  89,487. 
Colonial  Missionary  Society. 
Ladies'  Association  for  Promoting  Female  Education  in  India. 

CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND. 

The  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts.    Number  of 

missionaries,  593;  income,  £192,375. 
Church  Missionary  Society.    Number  of  missionaries,  268;  income,  £228,142; 

communicants,  29,630. 
Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge. 
London  Society  for  Promoting  Christianity  among  the  Jews. 
Colonial  and  Continental  Church  Society. 
Colouial  Bishoprics'  Fund. 


550  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

South  American  Missionary  Society.  Number  of  stations,  18 ;  income,  £13,731. 

British  Syrian  Schools. 

Spanish  and  Portuguese  Church  Missions. 

Missionary  Leaves  Association. 

The  Net. 

Foreign  Aid  Societj'-. 

St.  Boniface  Mission  House. 

Coral  Missionary  Fund. 

Columbia  Mission. 

Society  for  Advancing  the  Christian  Faith  in  the  British  "West  India  Islands. 

Church  of  England  Zenana  Missionary  Society. 

Universities'  Mission.     Number  of  missionaries,  25 ;  income,  £4,520. 


Friends'  Foreign  Mission  Association. 
Friends'  Mission  in  Syria  and  Palestine. 

METHODIST. 

Wesleyan  Methodist  Missionary  Society.  Number  of  missionaries,  847 ;  in- 
come, £165,498;  communicants,  150,367. 

Primitive  Methodist  Missionary  Society.  Number  of  missionaries,  96 ;  in- 
come, £19,427;  communicants,  7,811. 

Home  and  Foreign  Missions  of  the  United  Methodist  Free  Churches.  Number 
of  missionaries  ordained,  57  ;  income,  £6,009 ;  communicants,  7,332. 

Methodist  New  Connection  Missionary  Society.  Number  of  missionaries,  7 ; 
income,  £4,012;  communicants,  1,017. 

Ladies'  Auxiliary  Society  for  Female  Education.    Income,  £2,564. 

Board  of  Home  and  Foreign  Missions  of  Welsh  Calvinistic  Methodists.  Num- 
ber of  missionaries,  6  :  income,  £5,203  ;  communicants,  400. 

PRESBYTERIAN. 

Foreign  Missions  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  England.    Number  of  mis- 

sionai'ies,  31 :  income,  £10,894;  communicants,  2,232. 
Board  of  Home  and  Foreign  Missions  of  Presbyterian  Church  in  Ireland. 

Number  of  missionaries,"  11 ;  income,  nearly  £14,000, 
"Women's  Missionary  Association  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  England. 

Income,  £671. 
"Welsh  Presbyterian  Church  Missions.    Number  of  missionaries,  9;  income, 

£8,600. 
Church  of  Scotland  Mission  Boards.    Number  of  missionaries,  33 ;  income, 

£16,062;  communicants,  400  ( ?).     Schools! 
Free  Church  of  Scotland  Missions.    Number  of  missionaries,  80 ;   income, 

£25,918;  communicants,  3,384.     Schools! 
Scottish  Ladies'  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Female  Education  in 

India,  Church  of  Scotland.     Income,  £2,957. 
Ladies'  Society  of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland.    Income,  £5,994. 
United  Presbyterian  Church  Home  and  Foreign  Missions.    Number  of  mis- 
sionaries, 103;  communicants,  9,187. 
Gordon  Memorial  Mission  to  the  Zulus. 
Spanish  Evangelization  Society. 
Edinburgh  Medical  Missionary  Society.      Educates    medical  missionaries; 

inconie,  £4,468. 
Lebanon  Schools. 
Original  Secession  Church  India  Missions. 

UNITED  BRETHREN. 

London  Association  in  Aid  of  the  Moravian  Missions. 

Ladies'  Society  for  Promoting  Education  in  the  "West  Indies. 
Ladies*  Association  for  the  Social  and  Religious  Improvement  of  Syrian 
Females. 


APPENDIX.  551 


UNDENOMINATIONAL. 

British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  spent  in  I860,  on  foreign  field,  £12,219. 
The  China  Inland  Mission.    Number  of  missionaries,  105 ;  income,  £8,766 ; 

communicants,  1,000. 
Anglo-Indian  Evangelization  Society. 
Evangelical  Continental  Society. 
Waldensian  Church  Missions  in  Italy,  Auxiliary. 
Free  Italian  Church  Missions,  Auxiliaiy. 

British  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  among  the  Jews. 
Turkish  Missions  Aid  Society.  Aids  all  missions  in  Turkey ;  income,  £3,909. 
The  Spezia  Mission. 

National  Bible  Societj^  of  Scotland  spent  in  1880,  on  foreign  field,  £5,000. 
Religious  Tract  Society  spent  in  1880,  on  foreign  field,  £16,218. 
Indian  Female  Normal  School  Society.    Income,  $18,500. 
Christian  Vernacular  Education  Society.    Number  of  Colportors,  115 ;  income, 

£9,803. 
Society  for  Promoting  Female  Education  in  the  East.    Income,  £6,338. 
East  London  Institute  for  Home  and  Foreign  Missions.    Has  sent  out  100 

missionaries. 
The  Livingston  (Congo)  Inland  Mission.    Under  above  East  London  Inst. 

Number  of  missionaries,   10;  income,  £1,266. 
Sunday  School  Union. 
Evangelical  Alliance. 
Mico  Charity. 
Ladies'  Auxiliary  to  Edinburgh  Medical  Mission.    Income,  £182. 

COLONIAL  FOREIGN  MISSIONS. 

Regular  Baptist  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  Ontario  and  Quebec.  Number 
missionaries,  6 ;  income,  $8,948 ;  communicants,  431. 

Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  Maritime  Provinces.    Number  of  missionaries,  6. 

Woman's  Baptist  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  Convention  West.  Income, 
$1,986. 

Woman's  Baptist  Missionary  Society  of  Convention  East.     Income,  $747. 

The  Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist  Church  of  Canada  (Home  and 
Foreign).    Number  of  missionaries,  3  ;  income,  $6,423 ;  communicants,  170. 

General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Canada.  Number  of  mis- 
sionaries, 20;  income,  $43,193  ;  communicants,  442. 

Acadian  French  Mission,  Nova  Scotia. 

The  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the  Presbyterian  Chtirch  in 
Canada. 

Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the  Presbytery  of  Kingston. 

The  Halifax  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society. 

Canadian  Woman's  Board  of  Foreign  Missions. 

Other  Societies,  particularly  in  Australia,  South  Afi'ica,  East  and  West  Indies. 

UL  — CONTINENTAL  HOME  AND  FOREIGN  MISSIONS. 

a.    CONTINENTAL  HOME  MISSION  SOCIETIES. 

The  Evangelical  Society  of  Elberfeld. 

The  Evangelical  Society  of  Stuttgart. 

The  Evangelical  Society  of  Hamburg. 

The  Established  Church  of  Prussia  Evangelical  Union. 

Evangelical  Pastoral  Aid  Society  for  Rhineland. 

Gustave  Adolphus  Society,  with  many  Branches. 

Evangelical  John's  Institute,  Berlin. 

Kaiserswerth  Deaconesses'  Institute.    Also  foreign  department. 

Comite  de  Colportage,  and  Bible  Society  of  Basel. 

Auxiliary  Bible  Society. 

Commission  of  Evangelization  of  the  Free  Church  of  Vaudois. 

Society  of  the  Interior  Missions. 


552  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

Evangelical  Society  of  Berne. 

Evangelical  Society  of  Zurich. 

Evangelical  Society  of  St.  Gall. 

Societe'  Centrale  Protestante. 

Socie'te'  !^vangelique  de  France. 

Religious  Tract  Society  of  Paris. 

Commission  of  Evangelization  of  the  United  Free  Churches. 

Eglise  ^vangelique  of  Lyons. 

Protestant  Society  of  Lyons. 

Mission  Interior. 

Many  other  "  Inner  Missions  "  of  Germany. 

h.    CONTINENTAL  FOREIGN  MISSION  SOCIETIES. 

The  Berlin  Missionary  Society.    Number  of  missionaries,  75 ;  income,  256,940 

marks;  communicants,  4,187. 
The  Berlin  Central  Association  for  Evangelical  Missions  to  China.    Number 

of  missionaries,  4 ;  income,  $3,000 ;  communicants,  80. 
Berlin  South  African  Mission. 
Berlin  Society  for  Jerusalem. 

Evangelical  Society  for  German  Protestants  in  North  America. 
Hermannsburg  Missionary  Societv.    Number  of   missionaries,  60;    income, 

#37,735;  communicants,  1,946."' 
Leipzic  Lutheran  Missionary  Society.    Number  of  missionaries,  17 ;  income, 

#49,500;  communicants,  9,291. 
Moravian  (United  Brethren),  Church.     Number  of  missionaries,  281;  income, 

£18,343;  communicants,  24,439. 
North  German  Missionary  Society.    Number  of  missionaries,  9;    income, 

#23,500;  communicants,  101. 
Pastor  Gossner's  Missionary  Society.    Number  of  missionaries,  21 ;  income, 

#22,500;  communicants,  7,592. 
Rheinisch  Missionary  Society.    Number  of  missionaries,  62 ;  income,  #60,000 ; 

communicants,  6,193. 
Brecklumer  Missions  Anhalt. 
German  Ladies'  Society  lor  China. 

German  Ladies'  Society  for  Christian  Education  in  the  East. 
Swiss  German  Evangelical  Missionary  Society  of  Basel.    Number  of  mis- 
sionaries, 199 ;  income,  910,712  francs ;  communicants,  6,739. 
St.  Chrischona  Pilgrim  Mission.     Income,  £4,216. 
Socie'te'  ]^vangelique  de  Geneve. 

Society  of  the  Scattered  Protestants  in  Geneva  and  Vaud. 
Commission  of  Missions  of  the  Free  Church  of  Vaudois. 
Neufchatel  Society  for  the  Evangelization  of  France. 
Paris  Society  of  Evangelical  Missions.    Number  of  missionaries,  25 ;  income, 

330,769  francs ;  communicants,  4,252. 
Socie'te'  !^vangelique  Beige. 
Netherlands    Missionary    Society.     Number    of  missionaries,    21;    income, 

#40,000 ;  communicants,  8,000. 
Utrecht  Missionary  Society.    Number  of  missionaries,  10 ;  income,  #125,000. 
Ermelo  Missionary  Society. 
Netherlands  Missionary  Union. 
Mennonite  Missionar)^' Society. 
Netherlands  Reformed  Missionary  Society. 
Committee  for  Java,  or  Home  and  Foreign  Batavian  Society. 
Hollandish  Society  for  Missions. 
Netherlands  Indo  Bible  and  Missionary  Society. 
Zeyst  Missionary  Association. 

Netherlands  Auxiliary  Missionary  Society  at  Batavia. 
Java  Society  at  Amsterdam. 

Synodale  Zendings-commissee  in  Zuid- Africa.    Number  of  missionaries  11. 
Christlische   Gereformeerde-Kirk. 
Zeister  Hiilfsgesellschaft   fiii-  Hen-nhut. 


APPENDIX. 


553 


9.  Maristes.— Missions  in  New  Zealand,  New  Caledonia,  Oceanica,  Sydney. 

10.  Missions  Etranjrers,  or  Lazarists.  —  Missions  in  China,  Cochin  China, 
America. (North  and  South),  India  Japan,  and  Tonkin. 

Eheinische  Hiilfsmiss-Gesellsehaft. 

Netherlands  Missionary  Society  for  Israel. 

Missionary  Society  of  the  Separatist  Ileformed  Church  at  Kampen. 

Danish  Evang-elical  Lutheran  Missionary  Society.  Number  of  missionaries, 
4;  income,  $7,500;  communicants,  71. 

Royal  Danish  Missionary  College  for  Greenland. 

Missionary  Society  of  Goetberg. 

Swedish  Missionary  Society  for  Lapland. 

Swedish  Missionary  Society  at  Stockholm. 

Baptist  Swedish  Missionary  Society. 

Swedish  Missionary  Society  at  Lund  for  China. 

Missionary  Institute  of  the" Evangelical  Fatherland  Foundation  of  Stockholm. 

Norwegian  Lutheran  Missionary  Society.  Number  of  missionaries,  20;  in- 
come, ^19,500 ;  communicants,  355. 

Baptist  Norwegian  Foreign  Missionary  Society. 

Norway  Mission  Geminde. 

Finnish  Missionary  Society  of  Helsingfors. 

Waldenses'  Missionary  Society.  Number  of  missionaries,  20 ;  income,  $4,700 ; 
communicants,  1,300. 

Free  Italian  Church  Mission.  Number  of  missionaries,  26;  communicants, 
1.300. 

Ladies'  Auxiliaiy  to  Paris  Society.    Income,  7,982  fi-ancs. 

IV.— SANDWICH  ISLA2TOS. 

Honolulu  Seamen's  Friend  Society. 
Hawaiian  Evangelical  Association. 

TOTAL  OF   STATISTICS  OF  FOREIGN  MISSION  SOCIETIES. 


SOCIETIES. 

MISSION- 
AKIES. 

NATIVE 
HELPERS. 

COMMUNI- 
CANTS. 

SCHOLARS. 

ANNUAL 
INCOME. 

American  .    . 
English .    .    . 
Canadian   .    . 
Continental    . 
Others   .    .    . 

1,395 
2,657 

29 
767 

23 

5,498 

20,532 

103 

2,441 

156,447 
237,870 

1,043 
68,247 

8,514 

80,395 
285,237 

27,548 

$2,424,287 

4,538,82a 

58,564 

554,683 

4,871 

28,574 

472,121 

393,180 

$7,576,354 

Income  of  "Women's  Societies,  $755,179. 


ROMAN   CATHOLIC    FOREIGN   MISSIONS. 

The  Pnnceton  "  Missionajy  Review"  has  printed  this  year,  1881,  the  follow- 
ing list :  — 

1.  The  Augustinians.  — Laboring  in  the  Eastern  Churches  and  Australia. 

2.  Anglican  Benedictines.  —Laboring  in  the  English  Colonies  and  Oceanica. 

3.  The  Capuchins.  — Head-centre  at  Rome.  Missions  in  Brazil,  Chili,  Le- 
vant, Mesopotamia,  Tunis,  and  the  Seychelles. 

4.  The  Carmelites. —Manv  bishops  in  India,  vicar-apostolic  in  Bagdad, 

5.  Dominicans. —Missions  in  Canada,  Constantinople,  Chili,  Brazil,  Peru, 
Tonkin,  and  the  United  States. 

6.  Eudists.  —  Missions  in  many  of  the  Antilles. 

7.  Franciscans.  —  Centre  in  Rome.     Missions  in  various  countries. 

8.  Jesuits.  — Head-centre,  Florence.  Missions  in  Algeria,  Australia,  Bom- 
bay, Calcutta,  Guatemala,  Guzane,  Java,  La  Plate,  Madagascar,  Syria, 
United  States :  have  more  than  700  missionaries. 


554  CHRISTIAN   MISSIONS. 

11.  Missions  Africaines.  —  Head-centre,  Lyons.    Missions  in  Dahomey. 

12.  Missions  liltrang-ers  de  Bruxelles. — Missions  in  Mongolia. 

13.  Missions  Etrangers  de  Dublin.  —  Missions  in  various  countries. 

14.  Missions  l^trangers  de  Genes.  —  In  Brazil,  Constantinople,  Jerusalem,  and 
the  United  States. 

15.  Missions  jfitrangers  de  Milan. — Missions  in  India  and  Oceanica. 

16.  Oblates  of  the  Immaculate  Conception. —  In  Natal  and  Polar  North  America. 

17.  Oratories  of  England.  —  Missions  in  Ceylon. 

18.  Passionists.  —  Bulgaria,  Wallachia,  North  America. 

19.  Patriarchate  of  Jerusalem.  —  Establishments  of  Palestine  and  Delegation 
of  Lebanon. 

20.  Priests  of  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  Mary  or  Pietus. 

21.  Salvatoristes.  — Missions  in  America  and  Bengal. 

22.  Saint  Esprit,  St.  Coeur  de  Marie.  —  Negroes  in  Africa,  America,  and  Asia. 

23.  Propaganda.  —  Head-centre,  Lyons.     In  all  the  world. 

24.  Propaganda  de  Foi.    Income,  500,000  francs  from  weekly  sou  collections. 

25.  Spanish  Benedictines.  —  In  Archipelago  of  the  Pacific. 

GREEK   CHURCH   MISSIONS. 

Grand  Society  of  the  Russian  Church.  — Missions  in  China,  Japan,  and  Cen- 
tral Asia. 


Number  of  Protestant  Foreign  Medical  Missionaries,  112. 


N.  B.  —  For  other  statistical  information,  the  reader  is  referred  to  General 
Directory  of  Missionary  Societies  by  Mr.  W.  E.  Blackstone  of  Illinois,  and  to 
Foreign  Missionary  Manual  by  Rev.  F.  S.  Dobbins  of  Japan.  To  both  these 
works  this  Appendix  is  indebted. 


List  op  Principal  Exploeees  m  Afeioa. 


Bruce, 
Park, 


NUe, 

Western  Africa. 


{Denham,  Clapperton  and ") 
\  West  Central  Africa, 
Lander,  J 


TBABS. 

1768-73. 
1795-97, 1806. 

1822-27. 


4. 

Gobat  and  KraflF, 

Abyssinia, 

1830-33. 

5. 

Krapf  and  Rebmann, 

Eastern  Africa, 

1845-52. 

6. 

Barth,  Richardson    and 
Overweg, 

l  Soudan, 

1850-55. 

7. 

Livingstone, 

Southern  Africa, 

1849-56. 

8. 

Do. 

East  and  Central  Africa, 

1865-73. 

9. 

Burton  and  Speke, 

Eastern  Africa, 

1857-58. 

10. 

Speke  and  Grant, 

Eastern  Africa  and  Nile, 

1860-62. 

11. 

Baker, 

Nile 

1863-65. 

12. 

Wakefield  and  New, 

Eastern  Africa, 

1864-67,  1874-75. 

13. 

Schweinfurth, 

Nile, 

1868-71. 

14. 

Nachtigal, 

Soudan, 

1869-74. 

15. 

Stanley, 

East  and  Central  Africa, 

1871-72. 

16. 

Do. 

Across  Continent, 

1874-77, 

17. 

Cameroa» 

South  Central  Africa, 

1873.76. 

INDEX. 


ABA 

Abandoning  stations,  280,  281. 

Abbas,  359. 

Abbasside,  376. 

Abbott,  292. 

Abdal-Raman,  427. 

Abdul  Medjid,  401. 

Abee],  280. 

Abeokuta,  449. 

Aberdeen,  455. 

Abolition  of  slave  trade,  442, 443,  444, 

456,  457,  499,  501. 
Abomev,  438. 
Aborio^ines,  497,  498. 
Aboulfeda,  440. 
Abraham,  389,  432,  433,  493. 
Absence  from  field,  520. 
Abu-bekr,  360. 
Abydos,  391. 
Abyssinia,  435,  456. 
Abyssinian,  378,  414,  443. 
Abyssinians,  100. 

Acheen,  249. 
Acre,  368. 
Acropolis,  463. 

Adabazar,  417. 

Adam,  379. 

Adaptations,  in  Missions,  512. 

Adarbaijan,  357. 

Adelaide,  247,  256. 

Adequacy  of  supply,  339,  340,  341. 

Adrianople,  392. 

Adult  heathen,  212, 

Advance  of  present  century,  22. 

Adventism,  Second,  237,  516,  517. 

Esthetics,  in  Missions,  130,  131. 

Afghanistan,  287,  308,  348,  357,  359, 

370  372 
Afghans,  306,  358,  360,  364,  372,  425. 
Africa,  34,  52,  53,  55,  56,  100,  150,  252, 

255,317,  379,  404,  414,  425,  432, 

et  seq.,  476,  479,  480. 
Africa,  Central,  204,  421,  427,435,436, 

442,  452,  457,  458,  462. 
Africa,  East,  456,  457,  458,  459. 
Africa,  Equatorial,  522. 
"  African  Association,"  440. 
Africanus,  432. 
Africa,  South,  65,  287,  308,  451,  452, 

453,  454,  455,  457,  481,  541. 

Agencies,  54. 


AME 

Agha  Mohammed,  359. 
Agra,  310,  329,  355. 
Agriculture,  33. 

Ah-Hok,  152. 

Ahmednuggur,  337,  354. 

Ahmed  nuggur  Theological  Seminary, 

337. 
Ahriman,  319. 

Ainos,  103,  105. 

Aintab,  404,  405,  422,  429. 

Aitareyabrahmana,  312. 

Ajikawa,  104. 

Akbar,  306,  310,  355,  426. 

Alaska,  73,  87,  93,  508. 

Albanians,  425, 

Albert  Nvanza,  442, 459. 

Aleppo,  389,  409. 

Alexander,  34,  305,  357,  386. 

Alexandretta,  418. 

Alexandria,  305,  320,  348,  407,  432, 

434,  445,  465. 
Algeria,  446. 
Algerines,  425. 
AH,  360,  367,  368. 
All,  (the)  187. 
Allah,  319,  428. 
Allahabad,  316,  336. 
Allen,  399, 

AlliLiator  temple,  316. 
Al  Mansour,  376. 
Alphal)ets,  128,  234,  235. 
Alpine,  439,  478. 
Alps,  463. 

Altai  Mountains,  94. 
Altar  to  Heaven,  108,  169,  170,  173, 

311,  470. 

Amalgamation,  505. 

Amazirig,  435.- 

Araazon,  35,  495,  507. 

Amazons,  439. 

Ambarrawa,  250. 

America,  25,  32,  35,  36,  40,  41,  52,  99, 
100,  140,  150,  166,  204,  249,  289, 
321,  322,  330,  342,  343,  355,  407, 
417,  422,  430,  437,  444,  456,  465, 
473,  476,  478,  480,  481,  486,  488, 
489,  490,  524,  528. 

America,  Central,  494  et  seq. 


558 


INDEX. 


AME 


AUB 


American,  199,  208,  210,  211,  213,  215, 
216,  218,  219,  241,  272,  282,  288, 
308,  323,  332,  337,  340,  344,  354, 
362,  376,  424,  428,  429,  463,  464, 
468,  470,  477,  481,  482,  485,  489, 
493,  495   et  seq.,  539. 

American  Christianity,  483,  488. 

American  Colonization  Society,  448. 

American  Legations,  107,  151,  154. 

American  Missionary  Association,  55, 
449. 

American  Missions,  35,  54,  94. 

American  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church,  486. 

America,  South,  34,  35,  100,  266,  476, 
479,480,489  et  seq. 

Amguri,  301. 

Amharic,  435. 

Amherst,  291,  298. 

Amitabha,  188. 

Amoy,  144,  152,  164,  216,  2ia 

Amrou,  426. 

Amsterdam,  249. 

Amytis,  383. 

Anam,  264  et  seq.  283. 

Anamese,  264  et  seq. 

Ancestral  Worship,  182,  183,  188,  191, 

265. 
Ancestry,  137,  182,  189. 
Anchoretism,  434. 
Anderson,  332,  538. 
Aneityum,  262. 
Aneityumese,  252. 
Anglo-Saxon,  97,   160,  287,  360,  381, 

452,  481,  482,  489,  492,  513. 
Anglo-Saxons  of  Orient,  165. 
Angola,  451. 

Animism,  189,  192,  265,  284. 
Annihilation,  188,  191. 
Annuities,  523. 
Anthony,  434. 
Antigua,  506. 
Anti-mission  blight,  71. 
Antioch,  389,  407,  409,  419,  465. 
Antiquities,  Bible,  407. 
Antony,  434. 

Apollo,  248. 
Apologetics,  351. 
Apostles,  229. 
Apostles'  Creed,  486. 

Arab,  395,  396,  397,  398,  435,  440,  443, 

4r46. 

Arabia,  305,  317,  356,  375,  392  et  seq. 
Arabic,  378,  395,  414,  423,  424,  425, 

426. 
Arabic  Bible,  424,  425,  426,  427. 
Arabs  — ian,  306,  358,  360,  364,  377, 

395,  397,  407,  420,  425,  456,  458, 

460. 
Aracan,  287. 
Aramaeans,  435,  436. 


Ararat,  389,  408. 
Araxes,  379. 
Arbela,  357,  386. 
Arbitration,  541. 
Archaeology,  381,  407,  536. 
Architecture,  248,  310,  335. 
Arctic  Ocean,  376,  508. 
Argentine  Confederation,  495. 
Ar^^entine,  Interior,  502. 
Arian,  434. 
Arifs,  or  Sufis,  367. 
Arinori  Mori,  131. 

Armenia,'357,*379,  380,  393,  394,  408. 
Armenian,  305,  361,  368,  395,  407,  412, 

423. 
Armenian  Catholics,  408,  412. 
Armenians,  100,  360,  395,  408,  427. 
Armeno-Turkish,  423. 
Armstrong,  146. 
Arrian,  436. 
Arrowsmith,  440. 
Art,  310,  479. 
Arthington,  458. 
Arya,  305. 
Aryan,  103, 186,  248, 304,  305,311,  328. 

Asakasa,  or  Asaktisa,  119,  470. 

Asceticism,  187,  315. 

Ashanti,  284.  438,  439,  449. 

Ashmoi-e,  211. 

Asia,  18,  34,  94,  100, 121, 149, 150, 189, 
191,  192,  193.  197,  198,  211,  246, 
248,  265,  301,  303,  304,  317,  343, 
356,  404,  410,  414,  422,  425,  446, 
469,  476,  479,  481,  494,  510,  515. 

Asia  Minor,  357,  365,  375,  377,  392, 
393,  394,  402,  414,  419. 

Asia,  Southern,  522. 

Asiatic  Turkey,  359.    See  Turkey. 

Asoka,  191. 

Assam,  283,  et  seq. 

Asshurbanipal,  106,  386,  388. 

Asshur-izir-pal,  388. 

Assinie,  450. 

Assyria,  387,  388,  428. 

Assyrian,  106,  143,  172,  386,  387,  388, 
389,  406. 

Asur,  248. 

Atchison,  285. 

Athanasius,  334. 

Atheism,  110,  187,  191,  194, 195, 197, 

315,  467,  475. 
Athens,  279,  463.  518. 
Atlantic,  438,  443,  460,  463,  483. 
Atlantic  Cable  Dispatch,  529. 
Atlas  Mountains,  435. 
Atonement,  200,  278,  279. 
Atrak,  359. 
Atua,  256. 
Atwen-woons,  285. 

Auburndale,  206. 


INDEX. 


559 


AUG 


BIB 


Augustine,  434. 

Aurung-zebe,  306,  310. 

Austral,  260,  261. 

Australasia,  259. 

Australia,  100,  246,  247,  248,  251,  252, 
253,  256,  371,  481. 

Austria,  -an,  38,  365,  393,  399,  400, 
401,  403,  407,  437,  465,  468,  472, 
474,  477,  479,  498,  499,  513. 

Austro-Hungarian,  474, 

Auto-da-fe,  479,  496. 

Ava,  286,  287,  290,  293,  298. 
Avatars,  189. 
Avesta,  319. 

Awomori,  113. 

Ayodhya  (Oude),  187. 
Ayuthia,  267. 

Aztecs,  494. 


Bab,  368. 

Babel,  171,  381,  385. 

"  Babel  Polynesia,"  252. 

Baber,  306. 

Babylon,  142,  248,  356,  374   et   seq., 

398,  409. 
Babylonia,  387. 
Babylonian,  -s,  372,  406. 
Babys,  360,  368. 
Backsheesh,  377,  384. 
Baggage,  149,  510. 
Baghdad,  305,  344,  356,  360,  374,  375, 

376,  378,  379,  381,  384,  406,  408, 

409,  426,  431. 
Bahamas,  506. 
Baker,  442. 
Bakthan,  266. 
Baltic,  463. 

Bamboo,  161,  162,  265,  274. 
Bangalore,  331,  343. 
Bangkok,  264,  267,  268,  269,  273,  274, 

280,  281,  470. 
Bangweolo,  436,  451. 
Banks,  263. 
Bantus,  435. 

Baptismal  regeneration,  470. 
Baptist  (American,  North,  Missionary 

Union)  Missions,  54,  56,  97,  127, 

211,  231,  269,  270,  280,  288,  296, 

299,  300,  327,  332,  333,  449,  458, 

476,  477,  488,  490,  513,  523. 
Baptist  (American,  South)  Missions, 

55,  151,  213,  449,  477,  504. 
Baptist  (English)  Missions,  98,    220, 

331,  450,  458,  477,  506. 
Baptist  (Free)  Missions,  338. 
Barbarism,  497. 
Barchet,  213,  231. 
Bareilly  Theo.  Sem.,  338,  354. 
Barmen,  98,  219. 
Barth,  437. 


Basel,  98,  219,  449. 

Bashi  Bazouks,  377. 

iiassein,  271,  286,  292,  293,  295,  296, 

297,  323. 
Basutos,  446,  454,  455. 
Batavia,  249,  250,  258. 
Bates,  218. 
Battas,  258. 
Bavaria,  478. 
Beaconsfield,  376,  401. 
Bebek,  422. 

Bechuana-land,  453,  455. 
Bedouins,  395,  420,  424. 
Behar,  186. 
Behring's  Straits,  509. 
Beirut,  95,  231,  272,  356,  377,  405, 407, 

409,  411,  418,  419,  423,  424,  425, 

426  429. 
Belgium,  303,  396. 
Belshazzar,  382. 

Beluchis,  or  Beluchs,  358,  425,  456. 
Beluchistan,  357. 
Belus,  386. 
Benares,  173,  194,  310,  315,  316,  322, 

342,  470. 
Benevolence,  296. 

Beniral,  141,  282,  283,  287,  290,  306, 

'320,  330. 
Bengali,  308,  309,  331. 
Benguela,  -n,  440,  451. 
Beni-Israel,  356,  372. 
Berbers,  425,  435, 
Berlin,  219,  371,  419,474,  478. 
Berlin  Missionary  Society,  453. 
Berlin  South  African  Mission,  98,  453, 
Berlin  treaty,  402. 
Berlin  University,  488. 
Berthelsdorf,  254. 
Betel-nut,  288. 
Bethany,  390. 
Bethesda,  219. 
Beth-shemesh,  433, 
Betjuans,  454. 
Bezwada,  329. 

Bhamo,  300. 
Bharata-varsha,  305. 
Bhotani,  309. 

Bible,  35,  42,  66,  101,  127,  193,  194, 
198,  202,  210,  211,  212,  213,  221, 
222,  235,  243,  244,  261,  263,  272, 
279,  287,  290,  291,  297,  307,  309, 
335,  336,  319,  361,  366,  368,  372, 
373,  374,  375,  378,  379,  381,  382, 
385,  388,  390,  402,  413,  419,  423, 
424,  425,  426,  427,  428,  431,  432, 
433,  445,  452,  456,  457,  459,  460, 
471,  472,  473,  475,  477,  489,  493, 
494,  513,  514,  516,  517,  536. 

Bible  lands,  374  et  seq.,  397,  398,  415, 
417,  428,  432. 

Bible   Societies,  56,  137,  232,272,  335, 

343,  351,  361,  425,  493. 


560 


INDEX. 


BIB 


CAC 


Bible  women,  212,  230. 
Bickel,  490. 
Bihe,  440,  451. 
Bihe'ans,  451. 
Bijirek,  389,  398. 
Binnev,  292. 
Binuei  450,  459. 
Birs  Nimroud,  385,  386. 
Bismarck,  473. 
Bismarck  of  Siam,  268. 
Bistany,  409. 
Biwa,  104,  116. 

"  Black  Clergy,"  465,  470. 
Black  Sea,  394,  400. 
Bliss,  423,  426. 
Blodget,  151,  216,  425. 
Blythswood,  455. 

Boardman,  292. 

Bodhi-mauda,  194. 

Bodhi-tree,  194, 

Boers,  287,  455. 

Bohemia,  472. 

Bohemian,  254. 

Bolivia,  495,  502. 

Bombay,  122,  141,  271,  303,  308,  322, 

331,  332,  337,  346,  356. 
Bonn,  489. 

Bonzes,  265,  268,  275,  276. 
Boone,  218. 

Borneo,  246,  251,  257,  258. 
Borobodo,  248. 
Bosnia,  -ns,  394,  425. 
Bosporus,  360,  400,  401,  422,  429,  463. 
Boston  Consumptives'  Home,  226. 
Botany,  536. 
Bothnia  Gulf,  452. 
Boudinot,  70. 
Bourbon,  253. 
Bourse,  54. 
Bowring,  268,  275. 

Brahma,  313,  315. 

Brahman,  186,  187,  311,  314,  315, 

346. 
Brahmanism,   14,    173,    186,  187, 

189,  310,  311,  312,  315,  317, 

430,  541. 
Brahmans,  186,  187,  190,  191,  312, 

315,  316,  331. 
Brahmapootra,  284. 
Brahmo  Soraaj,  319,  328,  368. 
Brainard,  70. 
Brain  at  best,  81. 
Bray,  93. 

Brazil,  495,  et  seq. 
Brebcuf,  496. 
Bremen,  98. 

Brethren  in  Schleswig-Holstein,  i 
Brigham,  91. 

Bristol  Orphanage,  226,  491. 
British,  144, 146, 165, 208,  256,  272, 

284,  285,  286,  288,  304,  306, 


330, 

188, 
338, 

313, 


2S3, 
308, 


310,  320,  350,  387,  398,  402,  435, 
439,  440,  444,  447,  450,  453,  455, 
477,  481,  498,  499,  500,  504,  515. 

British  Columbia,  508. 

British  Guiana,  506. 

British  Museum,  386. 

British  North  America,  507,  508. 

British  S.  S.  Union,  493. 

British  West  Indies,  501  et  seq. 

Broad  Church,  427,  486. 

Broadv,  490. 

Brooklyn,  529. 

Brou^sa,  or  Broosa,  392,  429. 

Brown,  127,  128. 

Bruce,  361. 

Briinn,  477. 

Bryant,  216. 

Buckingham  Canal,  313,  332,  351. 
Buddha,   109,    174,    185  et  seq.,  242, 

248,  265,  286. 
Buddhism,   14,  104,  108,  143,  184,   185 

et  seq.,  236.  242, 248,  264,  267,  275, 

276,  278,  284,  302,  303,  312,  315, 

338,  541. 
Buddhist,  170,  193,  195,  276,  285,  292, 

302. 
Buddhistic,  188, 189,  190,  191, 192, 193, 

232,  247,  265,  268,  275,  284,  285, 

288,  287,  295,  302,  430. 
Buddhistic  revival,  109,  119. 
Buddhists,  39, 100, 174, 177, 185,  etseq., 

333,  427. 
Buenos  Ay  res,  497,  502,  507. 
Building  upon  heathen  good,  277,278. 
Buitenzorg,  249. 
Bulgaria,  -ns,  395,  408,  411,  422,  424, 

427. 
Bulgarian,  377,  423. 
Bunsen,  433. 

Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress, 309. 
Burdon,  218. 
Burlingame,  63. 
Burmah,  65,  189,   191,   192,  264,  270, 

271,   281,   283  et  seq.,   304,   307, 

321,  326,  340,  348. 
Burmese,  195,  271,  284  et  seq. 
Burial  at  sea,  87. 
Burton,  439,  441. 
Bushell,  292. 
Bushire,  359,  364. 
Bushmen,  435,  436. 
Bushra.  379,  408. 
Business  principles,  210. 
Butler's  Analogy,  309. 
Buxton,  500,  509, 

B3'iniJ:ton,  70. 
Byzantine,  392,  469. 


Cabul,  372. 
Cachao,  266. 


C, 


INDEX. 


561 


CAC 

Cachar,  287. 

Cairo,  378,'  391,  425,  426,  429,  436,  445. 

446. 
Calabar,  Old,  450. 
Calabash^  458. 
Calcutta,  95,  271,  285,  303,  308,  319, 

321,  322,  323,  331,  332,  336,  347, 

349,  365,  541. 
Calcutta  Miss.  Home,  321,  323. 
California,  47,  59,  67,  70,  495,  496. 
Caliphate,  360,  367. 
Caliphs,  410,  413. 
"Call  "to  missionary  labor,  211,  221, 

535. 
Calvin,  478,  517. 
Camboja,  264,  266,  272. 
Cambridge,  457. 
Cameron,  441. 
Cameroons,  or  uns,  450. 
Camoens,  279. 

Canada,  -ian,  34,  255,  355,  481,  508. 
Canarese,  305,  308. 
Candahar,  370. 
Cangoxima,  105. 
Cannibals,  253,  259,  260,  437. 
Canton,  140,  144,  146,  152,  158,  162, 

164,  171,  178,  199,  210,  213,  216, 

217,  219,  243. 
Canton  de  Vand,  99. 
Cape  Colony,  253,  436,  452. 
Cape  Good  "Hope,  248,  432,  451. 
Capital  and  Labor  (Great  Britain),  473. 
Capital  and  Labor  (West  Indies),  501. 
Capp,  211. 

Capuchin  Friars,  451. 
Carey,  79,  226,  289,  307,  322,  324,  331, 

348,  456,  515. 
Caribbean  Sea,  506. 
Carmel,  390. 
Carmelites,  451. 
Caroline,  92. 
Carpenter,  292,  297 
Carpet  Baggei's,  52. 
Carthage,  432. 
Casas  496. 

Cashmere,  or  Kashmir,  191,  304,  357. 
Cashmere  Gate,  355. 
Caspian,  305,  357,  358,  360,  364,  365. 
Cassay,  287- 
Caste;  176,  186,  187,  297,  310,  312,  313, 

314,  315,  328,  329,  331,  334,  335, 

336,  345,  346,  352,  429,  513,  526. 
Caste  Schools,  330,  334,  336,  513. 
Casveen,  365. 
Catechetical,  356. 
Catholic  Europe,  409,  463  et  seq.,  479, 

486. 
Catholics  in  America,  36,  37,  39,  468. 
Caucasian,  -s,  145,  252,  357,  452. 
Caucasus,  365. 
Cavalla,  449. 
Cavour,  497. 


CHI 

Cawnpore,  70,  307,  355,  392. 
Cazembe,  451. 

Celebes,  95,  247,  257,  258. 

Celibacy,  79,  202,  205,  207,  341,  408, 

470. 
Celtic,  484. 
Censorious,  227. 
Censors  (Chinese),  153,  154. 
Censor  (Turk),  402. 
Ceremonialism,  193,  200. 
Ceylon,  171,  191,  248,  302,  303,  304, 

326,  331,  333,  337. 

Chad,  Lake,  439,  458. 

Chakombe,  458. 

Chaldea,  -n,  171,  380,  383,  387,  409. 

Chaldean  Catholics,  409. 

Chalmers,  258,  331. 

Chandney  Chook,  355. 

Changing  missionaries,  238. 

Changing  native  customs,  135. 

Chapin,  217. 

Character  of  converts,  243,  244. 

Chard  in,  358. 

Charity,  483. 

Charlottenburg,  478. 

Charon,  434. 

Chastity,  438. 

Chau-chau-fu,  140. 

Cheang-mai,  281. 

Chefoo,  144,  145,  148,  151,  203,  210, 
211,  219,  236. 

Che-kiang,  148,  156,  157,  158,  160, 161 
217. 

Che-nan-fu,  210. 

Cheops,  248,  433. 

Chicago,  38,  40. 

Chi-kee,  243. 

Children  of  missionaries,  203, 206,  341, 
342,  343,  523,  524. 

Chili,  495,  497,  501,  502,  et  seq. 

China,  74,91, 137,  138,  139  etseq.,  153 
et  seq.,  168  et  seq.,  185  et  seq.,  221, 
et  seq.,  248,  250, 199,  265, 266, 274, 
284,  287,  300,  301,  304,  305,  312, 
324,  326,  410,  421,  426,  427,  464, 
476,  481,  512. 

China  Inland  Mission,  95,  97,  201,  220, 
221,  222,  223,  224,  225,  226,  227, 
228,  232,  491. 

C.  M.  S.  N.  Co.,  64,  155. 

"  China's  millions,"  226. 

China's  population.  No.,  139,  140. 

Chinese,  60, 90, 139  et  seq.,  153  et  seq., 
168  et  seq.,  185  et  seq.,  199  et  seq., 
221  et  seq.,  251,  266,  267,  269,  274, 
275,  279,  280,  281,  282,  284,  425, 
480,  506. 

Chinese  estimate  of  foreigners,  146. 

Chinese  Government,  156,  157. 

Chinese  graves,  178,  179,  182,  241. 

Chinese  Question,  59,  60,  61,  62. 


562 


INDEX. 


CHI 


CON 


Chinese  Religions,  168,  et  seq. 

Chinese  spoken  dialects,  163. 

Chinese  written  language,  163,  213, 
234,  235. 

Ching-kiang,  122,  144,  148,  149,  219. 

Ch'ing-ming,  183. 

Chinvanja,  457. 

Chitimbo,  444. 

Choaspes,  380. 

Chochin,  319. 

Chota  Nagpore,  327,  330. 

Chow  dynasty,  143. 

Christ,  79,  80,  84,  141,  161,  186,  195, 
199,  201,  227,  229,  259,  262,  279, 
319,  336,  347,  371,  390,  391,  409, 
424,  431,  433,  434,  459,  460,  461, 
462,  466,  467,  468,  486,  488,  500, 
516,  518,  526,  527,  535. 

Christendom,  40,  186,  272,  287,  307, 
319,  321,  333,  340,  390,  407,  410, 
412,  413,  420,  457,  462,  465,  479, 
487. 

Christian,  235,  413,  414. 

Christiana,  93. 

Christian  Church,  14,  32,  41,  68,  80,  95, 
185,  199,  209,  223,  227,  228,  232, 
239,  243,  279,  339,  385,  390,  410, 
412,  413,  416,  426,  434,  442,  444, 
460,  467,  517. 

Christian  Commission,  430. 

Chi-istianity,  35,  40,  56,  57,  80,  84,  101, 
119,  156,  186,  195,  204,  237,  242, 
243,  251,  253,  258,  276,  280,  289, 
303,  310,  311,  313,  314,  317,  318, 

319,  336,  340,  346,  347,  350.  385, 
403,  421,  426,  428,  431,  444,  459, 
464,  468,  490,  493,  496,  500,  503, 
504,  508,  509,  513,  517,  518,  527. 

Christianity  in  acceptable  quantities, 
278,  279. 

Christian  love,  516. 

Christian  missions,  63,  65,  68,  94,  95, 
111,  161,  198,  242,  252,  277,  278, 
308,  314,  321  et  seq.,  367,  370,  371, 
374,  375,  380,  401,  405,  411,  412 
et  seq.,  432  et  seq.,  467,  468,  470, 
473,  475,  476,  479,  480,  498,  503, 
504,  505,  510,  515,  516,  529,  536, 
540. 

*'  Christian  Researches,"  414. 

Christians,  318. 

Christians,  debtors,  532. 

"  Christians  of  St.  Thomas,"  319,  329. 

Christlieb,  16,  56,  83,  84,  101,  208,  253, 

320,  317,  319,  450,  453,  457,  489. 
Christ's  second  coming,  237,  516,  517. 
Chunder  Sen,  319,  368. 
Chung-king,  232. 

Church  and  State,  464,  465,  466,  486. 
Church  history,  79,  80,  228,  489,  517. 
Church   of   England,   219,   460,   476, 

486. 
Circassians,  425. 


"  City  of  Berlin,"  S.  S.,  510. 

Civilization,  68, 156,  232,  253,  354, 375, 
386,  433,  435,  441,  444,  452,  461, 
464,  465,  483,  502,  504,  505. 

Civil  Service,  475. 

Civil  Service  (China),  147,  165. 

Clark,  421. 

Clarkson,  500. 

Classics  (Chinese),  109,  147,  163,  166, 

181,  213,  220,  245. 
Clay  Ashland,  449. 
Clement,  434. 
Cleopatra,  434. 
Cleveland,  29. 
Cliffs,  59. 
Climate,  522. 

Climate  on  character,  342,  344. 
Climate  on  missionary  temper,  121. 
Clive,  306. 

Clough,  333,  334,  351. 
Clustei-ed  mission  families,  238. 

Coanza,  435,  451. 

Cochin,  500. 

Cochin  China,  142,  264. 

Coconada,  334,  346,  355. 

Coleman,  293. 

Colombia,  507. 

Colonial,  248,  260,  282,  481,  482. 

Colonies  (So.  America),  496,  500. 

Colonists,  497,  498. 

Colonizing,  53,  189,  251,  358,  435,  493, 
494. 

Colorado,  47. 

Columbo,  303. 

Columbus,  494. 

Commerce,  26. 

Commission,  212. 

Common  schools,  36,  38,  468. 

Communism,  475. 

Comparative  religions,  science,3 17,536. 

Compromise,  315. 

Comte,  351. 

Concentration,  526. 

Concordat,  465. 

Conferences,  209,  220,  244,  255,  258, 
343,  344,  350. 

Confessional.  470, 

Confucian,  174,  182,  183,  192. 

Confucianism,  109,  143,  184,  185,  187, 
188,  192,  197,  198,  265. 

Confucianists,  100,  174,  177,  192,  196, 
197,  464. 

Confucius,  143,  147,  166,  180,  181, 182, 
185,  213,  312. 

Congo,  435,  450,  451,  452,  458. 

Congregationalist  Missions  (American 
Board,  A.  B.  C  F.),  54,  57,  91, 
92,  120.  124,  128,  216,  238,  269, 
337,  343,  ,3ol,  389,  399,  408,  412, 
414,  417,  418,  421,  422,  423,  429, 
431,  451,  454,  462,  477,  507,  513, 
523,  530,  534. 


INDEX. 


563 


CON- 


DOM 


Confess,  51,  444,  499,  501. 

Conjurers,  177. 

Connecticut,  499. 

Conscience,   191,  194,  196,    198,   349, 

473. 
Consecration,  260,  515,  516. 
Constantine,  464,  487. 
Constantinople,  360.  365,  376,  392,  393, 

398,  400,  401,  403,  405,  407,  408, 

417,  422,  423,  424,  426,  429,  463, 

465. 
Contemplation  (Buddhist),  189,  315. 
Contributions,  261,  520. 
Converts  under  discipline,  217. 
Cook,  489,  510. 
Copernicus,  312. 
Copts,  100,  427,  445. 
Coptic,  378,  412,  435. 
Corbett,  211. 
Corea,  142,  190,  232. 
Corfu,  518. 
Corinthians,  227. 
Corisco  Bay,  450. 
Cortez,  495. 

Crawford,  213. 

Crescent,  306,  329,  369,  393,  et  seq. 

Crimea,  -n,  287,  399,  401,  474. 

Crischona,  419. 

Crischona  Brethren,  456. 

Criticism  of  missionaries,  528. 

Criticism  of  Mission  Society  Admiu., 

528. 
Cross,  278,  279,  329, 369,  393,  413,  427, 

460. 
Ci'owther,  450. 

Ctesias,  388. 
Ctesiphon,  376,  381. 

Cuba,  246,  494,  497,  501,  506. 

Cuddapah,  327. 

Cue,  222. 

Culinary  Art,  535. 

Culture"  of  Unbelief,  312,  319. 

Cunarder,  510. 

*'Cup  of  blessing,"  171. 

Customs  Service  (Chinese),  165,  411. 

Cyril,  409. 
Cyrus,  357,  365. 

Czar,  464,  469,  474. 


Dahabeeah,  378,  391. 
Dahomey,  384,  438. 
Dai,  103. 
Dai  Butsu,  106, 
Daimiyos,  104,  105. 
Damascus,  407,  411,  419,  426. 
Damietta,  445. 
Dana,  539. 


Danes,  306. 

Daniel,  the  lion's  den,  383,  384,  386. 

Danish,  324. 

Danish  Missions,  332,  509. 

Danish  West  Indies,  506. 

Danube.  394. 

Daoudee,  360,  368. 

Dardanelles,  360,  400. 

Darius,  383,  384. 

Darkness  of  Asia,  192. 

Darwin,  .351. 

David,  142,  171,  360. 

Davis,  125. 

Dawning  century,  540,  541. 

Dean,  269. 

Debt  of  obligation,  536. 

Deccan,  306. 

Deists,  338,  467. 

Delegations  to  Missions,  17,  19. 

Delhi,  306,  307,  310,  355,  539. 

Delagoa  Bay,  451. 

Delphi,  248. 

Deluge  tablets,  388. 

Democratic,  50. 

Denationalizing  heathen,  298,  354. 

Denderah,  391. 

Denmark,  98,  99,  254,  490. 

Denominational  comity,  271. 

Denominatioualism,   31,  32,  269,  270, 

271,  272,  471. 
Depok,  258. 
Deshima,  106. 

Detours  for  missionaries,  122. 
Deus,  91,  172. 
Development  theory,  351. 
Devil  worshippers,  191,  303. 
DeWitt,  440. 

Dhuleep  Sing  (Maharajah),  446. 
Dhunjeebhoy  Nourojee,  332. 

Dido,  432. 
Dien,  183. 
Difficulties  of  missionaries,  173,  243, 

254,  276,  286,  292,  515,  516. 
Difficulties   to  civilization    in  China, 

179. 
Dijizireh,  389. 
Dilawur  Khan,  372,  373. 
Diodorus,  388. 
Diplomacy,  236. 
Discipline,  217,  233. 
Discovery,  494. 
Disestablishment,  465,  466,  473,  486, 

487,  492. 
Dispensai-A',  207. 

Dissent,  465,  470,  471,  480,  485,  486. 
District  secretaries,  5.31. 
Divine  Wisdom  in  Missions,  511,  512. 
Division  of  labor,  269,  270,  271,  272. 
Divorce,  318. 

Dog,  cat,  and  rat  meat,  162. 
Domestic  slavery,  241,  242. 


564  INDEX. 

DOM 

Dominicans,  172,  451. 
Dorner,  489. 
Downie,  355. 

Dravidian,  305,  310. 
Dresden,  478. 

Dnff,  73,  322,  331,  332,  347. 

Duflfer,  440. 

Duncan,  508. 

Durfur,  435. 

Durga,  316. 

Dutch,  98,  106,  246  et  seq.,  264,  266, 

305,  306,  435,  480,  501. 
Dutch  Guiana,  506. 
Dutch  Missions,  95,  333,  453. 

Dyu,  or  Dyaus,  171,  172. 


ETH 


E. 

Eads,  526. 

Eastern  Church,  fragments    of,  407, 

408,  409,  410,  417. 
Eastern  Orthodox  Church  Con.,  465. 
Eastern  Question.,  400,  401,  403,  407. 
East  India  Co.,  306,  322,  359,  515. 
East  Indies  (Dutch),  246  et  seq.,  427. 
East  London  Society,  450. 
Easton,  418. 
Eating  of  flesh,  189. 

Ebenezer,  252. 

Ecbatana,  380,  383. 

Echigo,  105. 

Echmiazin,  408. 

Ecumenical  Council,  201,  470,  471. 

Edessa,  410. 

Edinburgh,  93,  478. 

Edkins,  191. 

Education,  16,  49,  50,  51,  211,  213, 
247,  271,  295,  307,  315,  320,  324, 
331,  332,  334,  347,  348,  351,  356, 
405,420,  421,  422,  466,  502,  504, 
505,  508,  508,  515. 

Education  touether  of  races,  298. 

Edwards  (Elder),  68. 

Egypt,  142,    171,   248,   356,  357,  358, 

365,375,  385,  391,  393,  394,  396, 

414,  418,  419,  432,  433,  434,  445, 
480,  481. 

Egyptian,  -s,  174,  406,  425,  432,  434, 
435,  442,  445,  498. 

Elburz,  365. 

Elirin,  107. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  443. 

El-Kab.  432. 

Ellice,  259. 

Ellinwood,  73,  89,  468,  537,  539. 

Elliott,  68,  70,  402. 

Ellis,  252, 


Ellore,  329. 
El  Obeid,  442. 
Elohim,  172. 

Emancipation,  442,  498,  499,  500,  501, 

503,  504,  505. 
Embroidery  Mission,  241. 
Emerson,  351. 

Emigration,  244,  473,  481,  483. 
Empress  Regent,  154. 

England,  95,  144,  207,  248,  249,  321, 

332,  349,  358,  359,  399,  400,  401, 

443,  444,  446,  456,  473,  478,  481, 
482,  483,  500. 

England,  Church  of,  263,  330,  484, 485, 
487,  506. 

English,  199,  216,  217,  247,  248,  260, 
262,  282,  287,  288,  295,  305,  331, 

342,  354,  364,  377,  398,  399,  407, 

411,  413,  418,  420,  428,  435,   445, 

454,  456,  480,  484,  494,  496,  497, 
498,  503,  510,  515,  519. 

English    Christianity,   482,  483,   484, 

485,  486,  487,  489. 

Enghsh  C.  M.  S.,  95,  98,  105,  180,217, 
233,  256,  257,  327,  329,  330,  347, 
361,  365,  372,  412,  414,  419,  420, 
431,  445,  447,  449,  450,  456,  458, 
459,  460,  461,  492,  508,  513,  539. 

English  Constitution,  473. 

English  Language,  desire  for  overesti- 
mated, 133. 

English  Language,  extent  of,  303,  319, 
447. 

English  Language  in  Mission  Schools, 
131,  132,  133,  422. 

English  Language,  its  Need  in  Evan- 
gelization, 131,  133. 

English  Non-conformists,  96,  97,  484, 
485. 

"  Envelope  System,"  535. 

Episcopal  Missions.  55,  137,  218,  219, 

270,  327,  449,  506. 
Episcopal      Theological     Seminary, 

Mexico,  506. 

Ei'omangau,  256. 
Ervil,  386. 
Erythraean,  358. 

Esar-haddon,  388. 

Esoteric,  189. 

Esquimaux,  103,  253,  509. 

Es  Salt,  420. 

Essence,  Chinese  idea,  180. 

Established    Churches,   Europe,  470, 

486,  492. 

Established     Churches,    Gt.   Britain, 

97,  271,  453,  484,486,492. 
Esthland  Islands,  452. 

Ethiopia,  358,  379. 
Ethnology,  310,  351,  374,  536. 


INDEX. 


565 


EITP 

Euphrates,   142,   364,   379,   381,    385, 

398,  406,  409. 
Eurasians,  281,  284,  335. 
Europe,  18,  34,  35,   97,   99,   100,   149, 

185,  203,  248,  305,  358,   377,   39;j, 

395,  399,  400,  401,    403,   404,    405. 

412,  414,  422,  446,  463,  467  et  seq., 

494,  496,  527. 
European,  208,  236,  351. 
European  Turkey,  375,  400. 
Euxine,  358. 

Evancrelical,  466,  467,  472,  473. 

Evangelical  Alliance,  477,  489. 

Evangelical  Cont.  Society,  472. 

Evangelization,  84,  95,  202,  211,  228, 
229,  237,  240,  243,  251,  257,  259, 
270,  277,  278,  286,  289,  290,  295, 
298,  307,  308,  315,  317,  319,  321, 
322,  323,  326,  3.J1,  335,  345,  340, 
347,  349,  352,  354,  363,  365,  385, 
390,  391,  401,  403,  406,  407,  410, 
415,  416,  420,  426,  428,432  et  seq., 
486,  487,  489,  509,  515,  516,  526. 

Examinations  (Chinese),  166. 

Exarch,  408. 

Excursion  Tickets   for   Missionaries, 

519,  521. 
Executive  Officers,  416,  417. 
Executive  Officers'  Salaries,  530,  531. 
Exegesis,  221,  222. 
Expectations,  127. 
Expenses  compared,  361,  362,  363. 
Expenses  of  World  Tour,  529,  530. 
Experiences,  peculiar,  221,  222. 
Exploration,  440,  441,  442,  456,  459. 
Express,  Foreign,  510. 
Extent  of  training  in  Mission  Schools, 

527. 
Extremity,  Opportunity,  500. 

Ezbekieh,  446. 
Ezekiel,  386. 


Fairfield,  506. 

Fairs  for  Missions,  27. 

Faith,  26,  214,  215,  221,  226,  227,  228, 

241,  320,  374,  383,  384,  513,  515, 

516,  536. 
Faith,  Paralysis  of,  245. 
"Faith  support,"  222,  223,  224,  225, 

226,  241,  271,  275,  276,  492. 
Fakirs,  316. 
Falkland  Islands,  507. 
Family,  203,  204,  205,  207,  315,  494. 
Famine,  165,  236,  237,  358,  389,  428. 
Famine  Relief,  165,  236,  332,  333,  348, 

351,  368,  369,  428. 
Fanaticism,  518. 
"  Fan-qui-tsu,"  148,  168. 
Farnham,  201,  210,  233. 


FU 


Farrar,  237. 

Feeling,  as  a  limit  to  God,  225,  271. 

Ferdinand  VII.,  499. 

Fergiisson,  310. 

Feruzabad,  359. 

Fetishism,  -ists,  100, 180,  436,  437,  446, 

503. 
Feudalism,  496. 

Field,  249,  250. 

Fickle,  212. 

Field  forces,  209,  321,  506,  507,  508. 

See  Statistics  and  Appendix. 
Fiji,  95,  262. 
"Filial  piety,"  182. 
Filioque,  464. 

Final  Triumph  of  Gospel,  517. 
Fingoes,  455. 
Finland,  98,  99,  452. 
Fisk  University,  449. 

Florida,  93. 

"Flowery  Kingdom,"  60. 

Foo,  or  Fo,  157,  174,  179. 
*'  Foolishness  of  God,"  215. 
Foot-binding,  239,  240. 
Formalism,   385,   410,   413,   428,  475, 

489,  490,  491,  518. 
Formosa,  103,  140,  219,  252. 

France,  38,  98,  99,  189,  265,  303,  399, 

400,  444,  465,  466,  472,  474,  477, 

479. 
Fraternal    emulation,    269,   270,   271, 

272. 
Fraternization    of   missionaries,    330, 

343 
Frederick  IV.  of  Denmark,  99. 
Frederick,  Gt.,  478. 
Frederick  of  Watteville,  254. 
Free  Church  (Italv),  472. 
Free  Church  of  Scotland,   171,  303, 

487. 
Free  Church  Scotch  Missions,  95,  97, 

263,  332,  350,  445,  454,  457,  458, 

462,  492. 
Freedmen's  Miss.  Aid  Soc,  449. 
Freedmen's  Schools.  51. 
Freedom,  religious,  317,  401,  402,  403, 

408. 
Free  trade  and  protective  tariff,  473. 
French,   199,  201,  207,  248,  250,  262, 

2Gi,  265,  266,  267,  303,  305,  306, 

308,  365,  399,  435,  450,  454,  460, 

465,  483,  494,  496,  497,  498,  500, 

501,  50S,  510. 
v^rench  Protestantism,  477. 
French  Republic,  474. 
Frere,  65,  455. 

Friend's  Missions,  338,  419,  460. 
Frontiersmen,  69. 

Fu,  157,  166. 


566 


INDEX. 


ru 


GBB 


Fu-chow,  144,  146,  152,  156,  164,  179, 

214,  215,  235,  240,  344. 
Fuh-kien,  152,  156,  157,  214,  217,  244. 
Fuhs,  194. 
Fujiyama,  114,  116. 
Fulahs,  435,  436. 
Fuller,  537. 
Fung-shwaj^  14,  173,  174,   175,  176, 

177,  178,  179,  180,  181,  182,  183, 

188,  192,  229,  230. 
Furlough,  civil  and  military,  519. 
Furraldiabad,  338. 


G-. 

Gaboon,  435,  450. 

Gaelic,  72. 

Gao^e,  510. 

Galilee,  378,  394. 

Gallas,  435,  439,  456. 

Galle,  303. 

Galileans,  465. 

Gambetta,  154,  474. 

Gambia,  435,  446,  450. 

Gambling,  274. 

Ganges,  141,  174,  185,  186,  257,  316, 

349. 
Garden  of  Eden,  379,  380. 
Garfield,  49. 
Garos.  300,  301. 
Gass,  488. 
Gaudama,  286. 
Gaza,  420. 

Geddis,  263. 

General  Miss.  Treasury,  525,  526. 

Genesis,  379. 

Geneva,  472. 

Genii,  191. 

Gennesaret,  374. 

Genoa,  305. 

Geographical  Society,  65,  457. 

Geography,  536. 

Geology,  b36. 

George'  III.,  499. 

Georgia,  34,  52. 

German,  172,  308,  354,  420,  453,  456, 

476,  480,  488. 
German   Missions,   98,  199,  219,  257, 

258,  327,  330,  449,  453,  454,  456. 
German  Protestantism,  488,  489. 
German  United  Evangelical  Church, 

98. 
Germany,   98,  99,  204,  207,  221,  321, 

400,  473,  474,  478,  479,  480,  482, 

484,  487,  488,  489,  492,  510,  518. 

Ghauts,  316. 
Ghonds,  338. 
Ghor,  372. 

Gibbon,  410. 

'*  Gibraltar  of  Heathenism,"  245. 


Gideon,  390. 
Gihon,  379. 
Gilbert,  92. 
Gilsey  House,  529. 
Gippsland,  252. 
Gizeh,  391. 

Glasgow,  93,  481. 
Gleason,  70. 

Gnadenhutten,  70. 

Gobat,  420,  456. 

God,  290,  311,  318,  320,  335,  501,  516, 
518. 

God,  aspirations  after,  170. 

God,  existence  of,  194. 

God  in  histoi'y,  457. 

God,  term  for,  172. 

Goethe,  478. 

Gold  and  Slave  Coasts,  449,  450. 

Golden  Gate,  47,  59,  73. 

Golden  Temple  (Benares),  315,  316, 
470. 

Gondwani,  308. 

Gongeu  Sama,  106. 

Gonzales,  495. 

Good,  372. 

(ioodell,  423. 

Gordon,  263. 

Gospel,  99, 141,  212,  243,  253,  262,  278, 
279,  280,  295,  296,  323,  329,  330, 
336,  346,  349,  350,  351,  368,  427, 
447,  476,  504,  509,  512,  517. 

Gossner,  98,  330,  332. 

Gottingen,  488. 

Government  Schools,  320,  346,  349, 
350,  420,  477,  602,  505. 

Gowahati,  301. 

Grant,  49,  52,  145,  441,  495. 

"  Grants-in-aid."  300,  348,  349. 

Gratitude,  195,  229,  326,  490. 

Graves,  213. 

Great  Britain,  99,  149,  160,  185,  204, 
221,  246,  284,  287,  303,  321,  359, 
364,  394,  400,  401,  407,  429,  432, 
442,  451,  465,  473,  479,  480,  482, 
484,  487,  488,  489,  493,  503. 

Great  Eastern,  S.  S.,  510. 

Great  Wall,  China,  143,  151,  376,  381. 

Greco-Turkish,  423. 

Greece,  171,  172,  312,  357,  393,  400, 
402,  403,  414,  434,  466,  477. 

Greek  Catholic  Church,  407,  412. 

Greek  Church,  93,  94,  100,  361,  407, 
408,  410,  412,  420,  464,  466,  467, 
476. 

Greek  Church  Missions,  138. 

Greek  Classics,  213. 

Greek  Europe,  463  et  seq.,  479,  486. 

Greek  Language,  26, 131,  172, 173,222, 
423. 

Greeks,  186,  395,  406,  427,  432,  440. 

Green,  128,  261. 


INDEX, 


567 


GBB 

Greenland,  255,  509. 
Gregory  XIH.,  106. 
Griffis,  75. 

Guiana,  506. 
Guinea,  438. 
Gujerat,  332. 
Gujerati,  309. 
Gujranwala,  338. 
Gulick,  92,  137,  138,343. 
Guntur,  327. 
Gurdaspur,  338. 
Gutzloff,  279. 

Gypsies,  265. 


Hadis,  318. 

Hague,  249. 

Hakkas,  219. 

Hakodate,  or  i,  103. 

Hakoni,  116. 

Hall,  489. 

Halle,  254,  488. 

Halle-Danish  Society,  98. 

Hamadan,  370. 

Hamites,  435. 

Hamitic,  253. 

Hamlin,  422. 

Han  dynasty,  143. 

Hang-chow,  142,  148,  149,  150,  156, 

157,  158,  210,  237. 
Hanging  Gardens,  382. 
Han-kow,  64,  144,  151,  158,  199,  216, 

217,  218,  231,  270. 
Hannibal,  432. 
Han  rivei*,  151. 
Han-yan,  151. 
Harems,  336,  430. 
"Harmony"  (ship),  255. 
Haroun-al-Raschid,  375,  376,  426. 
Harper,  171. 

Harpoot,  399,  404,  405,  422,  429. 
Harris,  227,  261. 
Haswell,  292. 
Hatti  Humayun,  402. 
Hatti  Sheriff  of  Gulhane',  401. 
"  Hau-hau,"  256. 
Havileh,  379. 
Hawaiian  Association,  92. 
Hayes,  49. 
Hayti,  506. 

Heathen,  200,  212,  289,  290,  295,  326, 
349,  350,  453,  469,  470,  515. 

Heathenism,  170,  296,  319,  332,  346, 
527. 

Health  of  missionaries,  522,  523. 

Heaven,  Altar  to,  108,  169,  170,  173. 

Heber,  542. 

Hebrew,  172,  434. 

Hebrews.  385. 


HOM 


Hebron,  390. 

Hegel,  351. 

Hegira,  318. 

Heidelberg,  488. 

Heliopolis,  433. 

Hell  (Buddhist),  276. 

Hellenic,  305. 

HeUespont,  392. 

Hengstenberg,  489. 

Henrv  VIII.,  202,  487. 

Henry-Martini,  146. 

Henthada,  292. 

Hepburn,  128. 

Herat,  372. 

Hereroland,  452. 

Hermannsburg  Mission,  98,  257,  332, 

454. 
Hermon,  390. 
Herod,  433. 
Herodotus,  388. 
Herrick,  423. 
Herrnhut,  254,  255. 
Hervey  Islands,  252,  259. 

Hia  dynasty,  143. 

Hiding  of  power,  516. 

Hien,  157. 

Hieroglyphics,  433. 

High  Church,  492. 

"Higher  Life,"  222,   227,    237,   491, 

492. 
Higher  Spiritual  Life,  541. 
Hihiire,  186,  497. 
Hillali,  381,  384. 

Himalayas,  186,  191,  318,  338,  355. 
Hindi,  308,  309. 
Hindu,  306,  308,  312,   313,  314,  320, 

328,  336,  351,  430. 
Hindu-Aryans,  187,  305,  310. 
Hinduism',  108,  173,  180,  186,  189,  190, 

192,  197,  314,  316,  319,  320,  322, 

328,  347,  350. 
Hindus,  39,  87, 100,  171,  174,  197,  284, 

311,  313,  315,  328,  331,  336,  350, 

427. 
Hindustan,  304. 
Hindustani,  308,  309,  456. 
Hindu  s_ymboIism,  316. 
Hiring  attendance,  233,  234. 
Hislop,  332. 
Hitzig,  488. 

Hoaiy  antiquity,  142. 

Holland,  97,  98,  99,  246,  248,  249,  444, 

484,  488. 
Holly,  506. 
Holt,  210. 
Holub,  437,  439. 
Holy  Land,  375,  377,  390. 
Holy  Spirit,  200,  214,  356,  410,  467, 

517. 
Holy  Synod  of  the  North,  466,  469. 
Home  ministers,  326. 
Home  missionaries,  326. 


568 


INDEX. 


HOM 


IN^T 


Home  Missions,  20,  41,  42,  51,  77,  341, 

390,  391,  487,  532,  540. 
Home  Miss.  Soc.  American  Baptist, 

507. 
Homer,  433. 
Homes,  Christian,  203,  204,  205,  342, 

343,  346,  490,  491. 
Honan,  232. 
Honduras,  506. 

Hong-Kong,  144,  152,  216,  218,  219. 
Honolulu,  92. 
Hooghly,  323. 
Hook,  336. 
Hopkins,  518. 
Hore,  458. 
Horrible,  542. 
Hosea,  433. 
Hoshangobat,  338. 
Hospital  opportunities,  231. 
Plottentots,  253,  435,  436,  452,  455. 
Hough,  286. 
House  of  Lords,  473, 
How-qua,  178. 

"H-tee,"288. 

Hue,  203. 
Hu-chau,  158. 
Hudson,  508. 
Hue,  264,  266. 
Hughes,  403. 
Huguenots,  189,  465,  479. 
Huluku  Kan,  376. 
Human  rights,  506. 
Hume,  337. 
Humphrey,  531. 
Hunan,  158,  232. 
Hungary,  474. 

Huntingdon  (Lady)  Connection  Mis- 
sions, 448. 
Hupeh,  148,  232,  243. 
Hurl  Gate,  514. 
Hurst,  488. 
Hussain,  360. 
Hussites,  254. 
Huttsburg,  254. 
Huxley,  351. 

Hvacinthe,  319,  477. 
Hyde,  92. 
Hyde  Park,  478. 
Hypocrisy,  191, 196,  198,  413. 


I. 


Ibadan,  449. 
Iberian,  469. 
Ibiu,  450. 

Ichang,  144,  232. 
Iconiura,  392. 
Icons,  468,  469,  471. 

Idaho,  47. 
Idolaters,  401. 
Idolatrous  paper,  240. 


Idolatry,  171,  174,  175,  181,  182,  188, 
lya,  279,  311,  315,  317,  318,  327, 
336,  345,  350,  404,  413,  467,  469, 
470,  518. 

Idols,  182,  188,  193,  265,  288,  292,  315, 
328,  333,  413,  467,  469,  470,  539. 

"  Ilala,"  457. 

Images,  193,  202. 

Imam,  456. 

Immorality,  196,  236,  237,  259,   274, 

285,  343,  395,  413,  444. 
Imoshagh,  435. 
Impatience  for  Lord's  Advent,   516, 

517. 
Imperialism,  474, 
Imperial  University,  Peking,  151,  166, 

168. 
Impressive,  holy  living,  345. 

Incarnation,  278. 

Incas,  494. 

Independent  missions,  122,  123,  124. 

Independents  (English),  281. 

India,  34,  65,  98,  99,  140,  143,  149,  160, 
165,  173,  174,  188,  189,  190,  191, 
192,  227,  248,  249,  265,  271,  284, 
285,  287,  297,  301,  302  et  seq.,  321 
et  seq.,  339  et  seq.,  361,  364,  372, 
409,  425,  426,  432,  436,  468,  476, 
480,  481,  513,  515,  519,  539. 

India  architecture,  310. 

India,  Farther,  283. 

India  mutiny,  307,  308. 

Indian  (N.  America)  evangelization, 
69,  70,  93,  255. 

Indian  Ocean,  376,  460. 

Indians  (from  India),  456,  506. 

Indians  (^Nlodocs),  67. 

Indians  (N.  American),  68,  69,  249, 
252,  508,  509. 

Indian  (S.  American),  498,  501,  506. 

Indian  Territory,  255. 

Indo-(Terman,  186. 

Indulgences,  470. 

Indus,  304,  356,  357,  372. 

Industrial  schools,  455. 

Industries,  352. 

Industry,  164,  251,  299,  351,  455. 

Infallibility,  38,  199,  313,  470. 

Infanticide,  259,  262,  318. 

Infidelitv,  190,  308,  346,  350,  471,  472, 
475;  489,  491,  518. 

Inglis,  331. 

Inman  Line,  510. 

Inquisition,  475,  479,  496,497. 

Inspiration,  311,403,  431. 

Insubordination.  123. 

Intellectual  ferment,  328,  502,  503. 

Intemperance,  161,  341,  444,  482,  500, 
508,  529,  539. 

Intolerance,  502. 

Intrigue,  370,  475,  480. 


INDEX. 


569 


rPA 


KAIf 


Ipare,  263. 
Iparese,  252. 

Ireland,  468,  481,  482. 
Irish,  165. 

Irrawaddy,  283,  284,  289, 292. 
Irrigation,  359,  380. 

Isaiah,  388. 

Isangila,  450. 

Isis,  433. 

Islam,  185,  193,  248,  317,  318,  319,  328, 
364,  367,  373,  393  et  seq.,  413 
et  seq.,  436,  442, 444,  446,  451,  467, 
480,  541. 

Ismailites,  360. 

Ispaiian,  358,  361. 

Israel,  142,  143,  335,  391,  433. 

Israelites,  432,  498. 

Issus,  357. 

Italian,  36,  199,  365,  483, 

Italic,  305. 

Italy,  38,  394,  400,  465,  466,  471,  474, 

477,  479. 
Itinerating,  201,203,  212,  217, 293,  294, 

295,  341. 

lyemitsu,  112. 
lyeyusu,  112. 


J". 


Jacobites,  409,  423. 

Jacobus  Baradseus,  409. 

Jacoby,  490. 

Jahangir,  306. 

Jains,  or  Jainas,  100,  303. 

Jainteea,  287. 

Jamaica,  251,  504,  505,  506. 

Japan,  74,  76,  101,  102  et  seq.,  118  et 
seq.,  140,  186,  189,  190,  191,  192, 
211.  235,  244,  248,  258,  267,  268, 
270,  278,  346,  421,  435,  464,  468, 
476,  481,  512. 

Japanese,  102  et  seq.,  118  et  seq.,  147, 
167,  190,  244,  278. 

Japanese  Diplomacy,  107. 

Japanese  faith,   unsettlement  of,  109, 

Japanese  History,  105. 

Japanese  Hotels",  115,  116. 

.Japanese  Literary  Styles,  108,  128. 

Japanese  Temples,  109. 

Japan  Evangelization  difficulties,  118, 
119. 

Japan,  Foreign  Teachers,  110,  111. 

Japan,  Mission  Union,  J20. 

Japan  Scholasticism,  109. 

Japan's  Government  Education,   109. 

Java,  246,  248,  249,  250,  257. 

Jefferson,  499. 
Jellallabad,  370. 
Jenkins,  328. 
Jeremiah,  356,  383,  433. 


Jerusalem,  84,  173,  227,  358,  374,  382, 

384,  388,  390,  394,  407,  410,  417, 

420,  426,  465. 
Jessup,  409,  413,  424. 
Jesuits,  105,  160,  172,  182,  200,  202, 

266,  279,  450,  451,  460,  496. 
Jesus,  243,  517. 
Jewett,  333. 
Jewish,  384. 
Jewish  Ritual,  170. 
Jews,  100,  318,  360,  370,  371,  372,  412, 

419,  423,  436,  445,  446,  492,  497. 
Jezio,  172. 

Jhelum,  338. 

Jimmu,  105. 
Jin-riki-sha,  112,  115. 
Jiziyah,  401. 

Joab,  380. 

Job,  389. 

John,  216. 

Johnson,  350,  490. 

Jolotfs,  436,  446. 

Jonah,  378,  388,  389. 

Jookja,  249. 

Joppa,  390,  420. 

Jordan,  420. 

Joruk,  380. 

Josaphat,  193. 

Joseph,  202,  378,  432,  433. 

Josiah,  143. 

"  Jossman,"  90. 

Judea,  375. 

Judson,  65,   270,  287,  288,  290,  293, 

297,  307,  348,  456. 
JuGTulerv,  229. 
Julia,  361. 
Jumna,  356. 
Jumna  Musjid,  310. 
Jnnule,  293,  294. 
Junk,  144. 
Jupiter,  172,  180. 
Jurganot,316. 
Justinian,  393. 

K. 

Kaaba,  317. 

Kaffiis,435,  436,  437,  454,  455,  457, 

461. 
Kagei,  459. 
Kagoshima,  105. 
Kai-Sai-Gaku,  109,  110. 
Kaiserswerth,  231. 
Kaisers werth  Deaconesses,  419. 
Ka-Khvens,  297. 
KaUan,  216. 
Kali,  541. 

Kali  Ghat,  347,  541. 
Kamakura,  106. 
Kansas,  255. 
Kansu,  232. 


570 


INDEX. 


KAP 


LIB 


Kapila,  190. 

Kapilavastu,  187,  190. 

Karbela,  360. 

Karens,  267,  271,  284,  288,  295. 

Karens  (Pwo),  292. 

Karens  (Sgau),  271,  284,  292,  293, 295, 

296,  297,  298. 
Karin,  359. 
Karmeles,  386,  387. 
Karnac,  310. 

Kashmir,  or  Cashmere,  191,  304,  357. 
Kashmiri,  309. 
Kathimain,  376. 
Kazan,  469. 
Kaziluzun,  359. 

Ke-Cho,  266. 
Keltic  (Celtic),  305. 
Kennedy,  510. 
Kerkha,  379,  380. 
Kermanshah,  371, 
Kerr,  210. 
Ketchawayo,  455. 

Khedive,  446. 
Khorasan,  392. 
Khorsabad,  386,  387. 
Khuzistan,  380. 

Kia-long,  266. 

Kiang-si,  148,  151,  232. 

Kiang-su,  148. 

Kidley,  72. 

Kidnapping,  437,  443. 

Kigalla,  456. 

Kikamba,  456. 

Kikiau,  456. 

Kikuafi,  456. 

Kiucaid,  292. 

"King  movement,"  256. 

Kinika,  456. 

Kiuyassa,  456. 

Kipokomo,  456. 

Kirkland,  68,  70. 

Kishuahili,  456. 

Kistna,  327. 

Kiu-kiang,  144,  151,  232. 

Kiushiu,  105. 

Kiyoto,  104,  115,  346. 

Kiyoto  Training  School,  124,  125. 

Kleinert,  489. 

Knox,  331. 

Kobe,  115,  120,  138, 147,  323. 

Koh-i-noor,  356. 

Kolapoor,  338. 

Kolhs,  327,  330. 

Kongoni,  457. 

Koong-foo-tsze,  181, 182,  265. 

Koong-tuh,  183. 

Kootub  Minar,  310,  355. 

Koran,  317,  318,  328,  367,  402,  403, 

425,  427,  428,  431. 
Sordofan,  442. 


Ko  Thah-byu,  295. 
Kow-tow,  150. 

Krapf,  456. 
Krishna,  290. 

Kshattriyas,  187,  312,  313,  314. 

Kublai,  143. 

Kmnasi,  438. 

Kung,  Prince,  148,  155. 

Kurdistan,  191,  376,  389,  394,  409. 

Kurds,  360,  377,  410,  425. 

Kurnah,  380. 

Kurrachee,  149,  316,  356. 

Kuruman,  453. 

Kuyunjek,  386,  388,  389. 

Kwang-si,  232,  266. 
Kwang-tung,  140,  152,  156,  219,  243. 
Kwanon,  193,  200,  468. 
Kwei-chau,  232. 


Labrador,  255,  509. 

Lahore,  329,  354. 

Lake,  394. 

La  Loubere,  277,  278. 

Lamas,  191. 

Language,  Chinese,  173,  235. 

Language  examinations,  356. 

Language,  India,  309. 

Lao,  272. 

Laos,  267,  268,  281. 

Laou-tsze,  180,  181,  185. 

La  Place,  201. 

Lapland,  452. 

La  Plata,  495. 

Latakia,  418,  429. 

Lathrop,  336. 

Latin,  172,  200,  213,  381,  463,  465,  473. 

Latins,  409. 

Lawrence,  307,  539. 

Layard,  383,  388,  410. 

Lawyer's  bills,  531. 

Lazarus,  342. 

Learning  language,  224,  356,  466. 

Leavitt,  136. 

Lebanon,  390,  408. 

"  Lebanon  Schools,"  418,  419. 

Lee,  49. 

Leeds,  458. 

Legend,  186,  190,  193,  267. 

Legge,  140,  209. 

Lehmanu,  490. 

Leiden,  186.. 

Leighton,  486. 

Leipzig  (Leipsic),  314,  488. 

Leipzig  Mission,  98,  332. 

Leo  XIIL,  466. 

Levant,  412,  414,  415,  417  et  seq. 

Liberalism,  83,  84. 
Liberia,  53,  448,  449,  450. 


INDEX.  571 

LIB  MAE 

Lutheran  Societies,  98,  327,  332,  452, 

460. 
Luxor,  39L 


Liberty,  260,  268,  317,  367,  408. 

Licentiousness,  470,  500. 

Life  enriched,  540. 

Life  Insurance  for  missionaries,  537. 

Light,  "  The  Li^^ht  of  Asia,"  185,  189, 

192,  193,  194,  196,  197,  242,  265, 

276,  277,  278,  285,  302. 
Li  Hung  Chang,  64,  65,  154,  155,  231. 
Limit    to    missionary    responsibility, 

139 
Linga,  315,  316. 
Lingah,  443. 
Lion  of  Lahore,  446. 
Lisbon,  451. 
Litchfield,  322. 
Literary    style   (Chinese),    213,    219, 

235 
Literature  (Buddhistic),  198. 
Literature,  India,  309,  351. 
Literature  of  Missions,  89,  95,  96, 173, 

234,  235,  274,  309,  333,  350,  415, 

416,  423,  424,  456. 
Little  Wanderers'  Home,  27. 
Liverpool,  93,  478,  510,  529. 
Livingstone,  53,   441,   444,   450,   457, 

535. 
Livingstone  Inland  Mission,  222. 
Livingstonia,  455. 
Livingstonia  Exp.,  457. 

Llorente,  496. 

Lodiana,  338. 

London,  56,  65,  209,255,  359,  371,  385, 

386,  457,  474,  478,  480,  481,  482, 

483,  485,  510,  518,  521. 
London  (East)  Institute,  222. 
London  Jewish  Mission,  456. 
London  Mission  (Congregational),  95, 

97,  98,  216,  231,  258,  259,  261,  270, 

322,  327,  329,  331,  347,  353,  457, 

460,  506. 
London  So.  American  Soc,  507. 
London  Workingmen's  College,  484. 
Long,  442. 
Long  Island,  33. 
Loo-choo  Islands,  103. 
Lord's  Day,  85,  233,  352,  508. 
Lord's  Prayer,  486. 
Lost,  89. 

Louis  XIV.,  164,  279,  479. 
Lovedale,  455,  457. 

Lualaba,  458. 
Lucerne,  478. 
Lucknow,  149,  307,  338,  342,  346,  347, 

355,  426. 
Lukuga,  458. 
Luristan,  380. 
Lut-d'hau,  285. 
Luther,  94,  185,  478,  517,  531. 
Lutheran  Evangelical,  55,  454. 
Lutherans,  452,  487. 
Lutherans,  American,  454. 


Lybian,  434. 
Lydia,  394. 
Lyons,  303. 

Macao,  200. 

Macedonia,  394,  424. 

Madagascar,  95,  252,  253,  459,  460, 

461,  476. 
Madonna,  469. 
Madras,  141,  271,  288,  303,  308,  332, 

333,  334,  347. 
Madura,  337,  513. 
Magadha,  186,  187. 
Magicians,  177. 
Magila,  458. 
Maha-bharata,  309,  315. 
Mahomet,  185,  193,  257,  311,  317,  318, 

357,  360,  372,  403,  404,  413,  414, 

425,  427,  430,  436,  467. 
Mahometan,  306,   308,  318,  320,  365, 

393  et  seq.,  412  et  seq.,  443. 
Mahometanism,  14,  173,  193,  247,  248, 

310,  317,  318,  367,  467. 
Mahometans,  100,  247,  284,  305,  317, 

328,  360,  366,  367,  394    et    seq., 

414,  et  seq.,  445,  447. 
Mahrathi,  308,  309. 
Mahratta,  191,  337. 
Majico  Islands,  103. 
Makalakas,  437. 
Malabar  Hill,  319,  355. 
Malacca,  248. 
Malagasy,  252,  253. 
Malay,  272,  282. 
Malavalim,  305,  308,  309,  329. 
Malayan,  249,  251,  258,  282,  425. 
Malayo-Polynesians,  92. 
Malta,  414. 
Mamelukes,  433. 
Manasseh,  143. 
Manchester,  481. 
Manchu  Court,  155,  156. 
Manchuria,  220. 
Manchus,  142,  155,  158. 
Mandalay,  283,  297,  300. 
Mandarin,  163,  168,  219,  244. 
Mandingoes,  425,  446. 
Mangaila,  261. 
Manisa,  429. 
Manitous,  508. 
Manufactories,  34. 
Ma-oo-ben,  292. 
Maori,  256. 
Maps,  461. 

Marash,  404,  422,  429. 
Marco  Polo,  157. 
Mardin,  406,  409,  422,  429. 
Marenga,  457. 


572 


INDEX. 


MAB 


MIS 


Margary,  203. 

Mark,  434. 

Marmora,  463. 

Maronites,  408,  412,  427. 

Marquette,  496. 

Marriage,  240. 

Mars,  180. 

Marshall,  92. 

Marshman,  79,  289,  307,  322,  324,  331, 

515. 
Marsinupore,  338. 
Marsovan,  422,  429. 
Martaban,  287. 
Martel,  393. 
Martin,  151,  168,  254. 
Martyn,  H.,  329,  361. 
Martyrs,  105,  106,  201,  243,  256,  258, 

263,  460,  517,  536. 
Masasi,  458. 
Mason,  292. 

Masquerade  of  Virtues,  194,  196,  197. 
Mass,  200,  202. 
Massachusetts,  499. 
Massacres,  419. 
Masulipatam,  327,  330. 
Matabele,  437. 
Materialism,   14,    110,    111,    119,    169, 

175,  180,  188,  190,  192,  351,  516. 
Matoka,  450. 
Matsumai,  103. 

Maulmain,  286,  292,  296,  297,302,323. 
Mault,  322. 
Mauritius,  461. 
Mawbev,  231. 
Maya,  190. 
Mazdeism,  see  Parsism  or  Parseeism. 

Mbw,  450. 

McAU,  477. 
McCosh,  489. 
McFarlaud,  268. 

Mecca,  173,  317,  372,  393,  403. 

MediEeval,  193. 

Medina,  173. 

Mediterranean,  131,  197,  401,  432, 436, 

463. 
Medo-Persian,  382. 
Medrisehs,  414. 
Me'la,  316. 

Melanesia,246,  252.  262,  263. 
Melbourne,  247,  251. 
Meranon,  542. 

Memories,  remarkable,  163. 
Memphis,  391,  433. 
Menam,  267,  273,  274. 
Mencius,  143,  147,  166,  182. 
Menu,  312,  313,  314. 
Mercator,  440. 
Mercury,  180. 
Mergui",  287- 
Merit,  195,  196,  197,  200. 
Mernephthah,  432. 


Merodach,  or  Maruduk,  172,  248. 
Mesopotamia.  344,  357,  359,  364,  375 

et  seq.,  393,  409. 

Metempsychosis,  187,  196. 

Methodist  (English)  Missions,  97,  216. 

Method  St  Free  Church  Missions,  448. 

Methodist  (American)  Missions,  54, 
55,  56,  64,  95,  128,  214,  215,  217, 
227,  240,  270,  337,  338,  347,  419, 
449,  477,  488,  490,  506,  507. 

Methodist  (South)  Missions,  55,  215. 

Metlakahtla,  508. 

Metropolitan,  469. 

Mexicans.  498. 

Mexico,  94, 96, 171, 283, 476, 494  et  seq. 

Mexico,  Gulf,  495,  502. 

Micronesia,  92,  93,  246,  263,  421,  538. 

"Middle  Kingdom,"  167,  174,  209, 
245. 

Mikado,  75,  103,  104,  105,  106,  107, 
268. 

Milan,  320. 

Mildmav,  56,  96,  209,  258,  322,  327, 
350,"  500. 

Mill,  351. 

Millennium,  541. 

Mills,  211. 

Milne,  162. 

Milwaukee,  518. 

Minahassa,  257,  258. 

Mineralogy,  536. 

Ming  dynasty,  144,  155. 

Ming-te,  188.' 

Mining,  93. 

?klining  Stock  Exchange,  54. 

Ministerial  Education,  Paris,  477. 

Mirambo,  458. 

Mirage,  517. 

Missionaries'  Children.  See  Chil- 
dren of  Missionaries. 

Missionaries,  New,  137,  356,  522,  527. 

Missionaries,  Old,  527. 

Missionary  addresses,  524,  525. 

Missionary  Concert,  532. 

Missionary  correspondence,  525. 

Missionary  difficulties,  527. 

Missionary  Evangelist,  532. 

Missionary  food,  129. 

Missionary  heroism,  448,  458. 

Missionary  idea,  532. 

"  Missionary  interests  as  such,"  348. 

Missionary  invalids,  521,  522,  523. 

Missionary  jewellery,  131. 

Missionary  laymen,  323. 

Missionaj-y  literature,  532. 

MissionarV  marriage  question,  203, 
204,  205,  339. 

Missionary  "mine,"  118. 

Missionary  obligation  to  Home  Soci- 
eties, *124,  525. 

Missionary  physicians,  217,  228,  229, 
231,  431,  535. 


INDEX. 


573 


MIS 


NAT 


Missionary  salary,  201,  227,  324,  325, 
326. 

Missionaiy  social  life,  272. 

Missionary  tact,  462. 

Missionary  vacations,  217,  518,  519, 
520,  521,  522,  523,  524. 

Mission  boats,  219. 

Mission  buildings,  128,  129,  292,  352, 
353,  354. 

Mission  lectureships,  527. 

Mission  professorships.  College,  527. 

Mission  llesults,  9J,  101,  209,  215,  223, 
247,  259,  262,  278,  284.  289,  307, 
309,  326,  327,  328,  329,  332,  333, 
334,  335,  435,  452,  460,  503,  504, 
508,  509,  514,  539,  540. 

Mission  schools,  101,  211,  212,  213, 
218,  239,  240,  244,  254,  272,  296, 
299,  300,  320,  334,  335,  346,  347, 
348,  354,  368,  405,  419,  420,  421, 
422,  430,  446,  466,  505,  513. 

Missions  in  diplomacy,  65.  231. 

Mission  Societies,  58,423, 208,  226,321, 
417,  419,  452,  453,  454. 

Mission  Societies  numbered,  99,  208, 
445  et  seq. 

Mission  Soc.  periodicals,  530,  531,  533, 
537. 

Missions,  suppression  of,  348. 

Mission  success,  rapid,  513,  514. 

Mississippi,  33,  35,  495,  526. 

Missouri,  47. 

Mitsu  Bishi,  144. 

Moderation  theoiy,  161. 

Moeris,  433. 

Moffiit  Inst.,  453. 

Mogul,  306,  310,  355,  376. 

Mohammed  II.,  392,  393. 

Mollah,  366. 

Molokani,  471. 

Moluccas,  246,  252. 

Mombasa,  456. 

Monasticism,  434. 

Mongolians.  145,  381. 

Mongols,  91,  142,  143,  157. 

Monkey  temple,  Benares,  316. 

Monophysites,  409. 

Monopoly  of  missionaries,  526. 

Monrovia,  448,  449. 

Mont  Blanc,  479. 

Montenegro,  395. 

Monotheism,  193,311,  319,  467. 

Moody  and  Sankey,  71,  354,  489,  532. 

Moors,  425,  434,  497. 

Morality,  morals,  187,  188,  189,  193, 

194,  195,  196,  251,  328,  491,  503, 

517. 
Moral  obligation,  193,  196,  276,  316. 
Moravians,  55,  97,  98,  252,  253,  254, 

255,  256,  338,  360,  454,  506,  509. 
"  Morning  Star,"  93. 
Morocco,  446. 


Morrison,  216. 

Mortlock,  92. 

IMoscow,  i69. 

Moses.  142,  171,  350,  378,  379,  433. 

Moslem,  319,  328,  360,  364,  368,  371, 

373,  392  et  seq.,  414  et  seq.,  435, 

436,  444,  446,  513. 
Moslem  Evangelization,  95,  257,  373, 

403. 
INIoslems,  39,  198,   359,   414    et   seq., 

436,  445. 
Mosquito,  255,  506. 
Mosul,   387,   389,  406,  409,  426,   428, 

431. 
Motive,  195. 

Motives  to  co-operation,  533.  ^ 
Motive  supreme  in  giving,  535. 
Mozambique,  451,  460. 

Mpwapwa,  459. 

Mtesa,  441,  442,  459. 

Muang  T'hai,  267. 
jNIuhlenberg,  454. 
Muir,  318. 
Mullens,  56,  458. 
Muller,  226.  227,  228. 
Miiller,  J.,  488. 
Mummies,  391. 
Munich,  478,  488. 
Munnipoor,  287. 
jNIurchison,  457. 
Muscat,  456. 
Mussulman,  330,  366,  425. 

Mysore,  331,  332,  343. 

Mvth,  190. 

Mythology,  186,  278,  286,  434. 


Nablous,  420. 

Nabu,  248. 

Nachtigal,  442. 

Nagas,  300. 

Nagasaki,  105,  106. 

Nagova,  105. 

Xagpore,  332,  354. 

Nahum,  388. 

Nakandau,  285. 

Nakhon  What,  265. 

Namaqualand,  452. 

Naneka,  338. 

Nanking  (Nankin),  202,  210,  232. 

Naples,  463. 

Napoleon   Great,  and  III.,  248,   376, 

433,  474. 
Narayan  Sheshadri,  332. 
Narragansett,  47,  529. 
Narragansetts,  495. 
Nassr-ud-din,  357. 
Natal,  440,  454,  455. 
Native  dress,  222. 


574  INDEX. 

NAT 

Native  ministry,   125,  214,  294,  322, 

329,  338,  506. 
Native  preachers'  salaries,  244. 
Native  support,  213. 
Natural  gifts,  216. 
Nature  deified,  170,  171. 
Nature  Worship,  169, 170, 173, 188, 192, 

311,317. 
Navigators'  Islands,  252. 
Nazareth,  419, 420. 


Nebraska,  47. 

Nebuchadnezzar,   142,  381,  382,  383, 

386. 
Neederlandsch  Z.  G.,  97. 
Neesima,  125,  346. 
Negril,  Negrillo,  252. 
Negro,  -es,'435,  436,  437,  438,  456,  498, 

499,  501,  503,  505,  506,  509. 
Negro  franchise,  541. 
Negro  suffrage,  50. 
Nehemiah,  358. 
Nellore,  327,  333,  355. 
Nelson,  218. 
Nepauli,  309. 
Nesibis,  389,  409. 
Nestorian,  -s,  360,  361,  369,  409,  410, 

412,  427. 
Nestorius,  409. 
Neutrality,  320,  350. 
Nevada,  47,  59,  495. 
Nevius,  162,  211,  236. 
New  Caledonia,  247,  252,  262. 
New-chwang,  144. 
New  England,  33. 
Newfoundland,  93,  371,  508. 
New  Guinea,  247,  252,  258,  260. 
New  Hampshire,  499. 
New  Hebrides,  262. 
New  Jersey,  499. 
Newport,  59. 
New  South  Wales,  247. 
Newton,  514. 
Newton  Centre,  206. 
New  York,  25,  31, 38, 42,  241, 422, 483, 

497,  514,  529. 
New  York  State,  499. 
New  Zealand,  246,  247,  251,  252,  256, 

257,  481. 

Ngan-hwei,  148,  232. 
Ngan-king,  232. 

Niagara,  273. 

Nias,  258. 

Nicaragua,  506. 

Nice,  Council  of,  320. 

Nichi-Nichi-Shinbun,  153. 

Nicholas,  474. 

Nicomedia,  417. 

Niger,  435,  439,  450,  452,  459. 

Nihilist,  -ism,  474,  475. 

Niigata,  105. 

Nikko,  112. 


ONE 

Nile,  174,  374,  378,  391,  394,  400,  433, 

434,  435,  440,  441,  442,  445,  452, 

460. 
Nimroud,  385,  386,  388. 
Nineveh,  142,  356,  374,  et  seq.,  398, 

407,  409. 
Ningpo,  143,  144,  148,  158,  164,  307, 

210,  213,  216,  217,  231,  233,  237. 
Niphates,  387. 
Nippon,  103. 

Nirvana,  187,  188,  191,  195,  197. 
Nitschman,  254. 

Noah,  170. 

No-Ammon,  433. 

Noble,  330. 

Non-Conformity,  486.    See  Dissent. 

North  German  Soc,  449. 

Norway,  98,  490. 

Norwegian  Society,  454,  460. 

Nourdenburg,  258. 

Novelty  gone,  149,  527. 

Nowgong,  301. 

Noyes,  210. 

Nubian,  378. 

Nyassa,  441,  451,  455,  457. 


O. 

Obelisk,  383,  433. 

Ober-Ammergau,  478. 

Obligation  to  Missions,  289. 

Observer  (N.Y.),  540. 

Obstacle  to  Missions,  the  great  one, 

537. 
Obstructions,  515. 

Occult  Science,  174. 
Ocean  Reading.  89. 
Octavius,  434. 

Odessa,  476. 

Officers  of  Ships,  88. 

Ogawa,  103. 
Ogilby,  440. 

Ohio,  28,  29. 

Ojibways,  496. 

Okas,  508. 

Old  men,  523. 
Olivet,  390. 
Olympiad,  143. 

Omaha,  47. 
Oman,  456. 
Omar,  Caliph  (Kalif),  305,  360,  426. 

Oncken,  490. 
Oneidas,  68. 
Oneroa,  261. 


INDEX. 


575 


ON 

Ongole,  313,  333,  334,  351,  354. 
On  the  other  side,  528. 

Opium,  139,  148,    159,   160,    161,  213, 

236,  286,287,306,320,541. 
Optimism  of  missionaries,  279,  280. 

Oral  Tradition,  193. 

Orange  River,  453. 

Order  of  G.  M.  S.,  254. 

Orfah,  395,  426. 

Organizing  churches,  369,  370. 

Orient,  185,  248,  259,  274,  358,  538. 

Oriental,  389. 

O.  &0.  S.  S.Co.,72. 

Oriental  Christian  Churches,  95. 

Oriental  Churches,  396,  404,  407,  408, 

409,  410,  412,  413,  418,  426,  428, 

468,  476. 
Origen,  434. 
Orissa,  338. 
Oriva,  309. 
Ormazd,  319. 
Ormuz,  359. 

Oroomiah,  358,  361,  366,  369,  371. 
Orthodox  Greeks,  408,  465,  476. 

Osaka,  104,  110,  136,  137, 147,  224. 

Osiout,  445. 

Osiris,  248,  433,  434. 

Osmanlis,  392,  393  et  seq. 

Osmanli  Turkish,  423. 

Otgiheroro,  452. 

Othman   (Osman),  Caliph,  317,   360, 

367,  392  et  seq. 
Otis  Legacy,  54,  66,  531. 
Otsu,  116. 
Ottoman,  392,  394  et  seq.,  412  et  seq., 

513. 

Oude,  95,  187. 
Oung-pen-la,  291,  293,  298. 
Out  of  self  into  Christ,  538. 
Outside  of  Station  Work,  293,  294. 
Ovahereros,  452. 
Ovamboland,  452. 

Over-crowding  Mission  Schools,  299, 
300. 

Oxford,  457. 
Oxus,  358. 


Pachomius,  434. 
Pacific  Mail,  72. 
Pacific  Ocean,  72,  378,  410,  479,  495, 

508. 
Pagan,  -ism,  257,  368,  444,  469,  472, 

496. 
Pagans,  100,  247,  253,  349,  447,  467, 

469,  470,  479. 
Pagoda,  179,  268,  329. 
Paine,  351. 


PER 


Pak-hoi,  144. 

Palestine,  189,  358,  359,  372,  375,  377, 

378,  41-\  420,  423. 
Pale)''s  Evidences,  309. 
Pali,  274,  276,  303. 
Palisades,  59. 
Palmas,  Cape,  449. 
Palmyra,  305. 
"  Pampas,"  495. 
Pantaenus,  320. 
Pantheism,  187,  311,  313. 
Pao-ting-fu,  loo,  216. 
Papacy,  472,  476,  496,  et  seq. 
Papaver,  160. 

Papuans,  252,  253,  254,  260. 
Papvrus,  432,  433. 
Parasruav,  496,  502. 
Pariah,  330,  334. 
Paris,  54,  265,  376,  469,  474,  528. 
Paris  Missionary  Society,  446,  454. 
Park,  337. 
Parker,  478. 
Parliament,  161,   307,   322,   443,   444, 

500,  501,  515. 
Parsee,  88,  174,  305,  319,  332,  360. 
Parseeism,  185. 
Parthenon,  310,  463. 
Parvati,  316. 
Passion  Play,  478. 
Passport,  113. 
Pastorate,  16,  529. 
Pathos,  390. 
Patience,  462. 
Patmos,  379. 
Patna,  141. 

Patriarch,  407,  408,  409,  465,  466. 
Patterson,  263. 
Paul,  79,  80,  227,  243,  279,  378,  390, 

462. 
Paupers,  483. 

"  Peaceful  Land,"  18S. 

"  Peace  Policy,"  70. 

Peacock  throne,  355. 

Pearl  Mosque,  355. 

Pegu,  287. 

Pell-Chili,  155,  162,  219. 

Peiho,  64,  146. 

Pekini,^  64, 108, 139,  142,144,  151,  166, 

168,  173,  191,  199,  200,  201,  207, 

210,  215,  216,  218,  311,  425,  426, 

470,  480. 
Penance,  200,  475. 
Penang,  281,  282. 
Pennsylvania,  499. 
Penom-peng,  266. 
Pentateuch,  386. 
Pequots,  495. 
"  Periplus"  (Arrian),  436. 
Perkins,  361. 
Perry,  107. 
Persecution,  266,  279,  460,  480,  503, 

504. 


576 


INDEX. 


PER 


PRO 


Persia,  305,  312,  317.  35fi,  357  et  seq., 
375,  380,  410,  443,  468,  480. 

Persian,  174,  304,  305,  357  et  seq.^ 
386,  394,  401,  425,  456. 

Persians,  306,  360  et  seq.,  410,  425. 

Personal  magnetism,  133. 

Personal  work,  200,  356. 

Peru,  494,  495,  502. 

Peshawar,  403. 

Pesherehs,  253. 

Pessimism,  191,  197. 

Pessimism  of  missionaries,  280. 

Petchaburi,  268. 

Peter,  82. 

Petra,  390. 

Pharaoh,  432,  433,  498. 
Philanthropy,  332,  368,  428,  466,  483, 

484,  500,  501. 
Philippines,  246,  247. 
Philolopy,  374,  536. 
Phoenice,  or  ia,  -an,  358,  375,  432. 
Phra,  or  Pra,  275. 

Pigafetta,  440. 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  249. 

Pillars  of  Hercules,  376. 

PintQ,  440,  451. 

Pioneer  missionaries,  289,  290. 

Pisgah,  390. 

Pison,  379. 

Pius  IX.,  466,  470. 

Pizarro,  495. 

Plassy,  306. 

Plato,  434. 

Plevna,  411. 

Plutscho,  99. 

Plymouth  Brethren,  222,  281, 491,  492. 

Plymouth  Rock,  249. 

Pniel,  453. 

Point  Macleay,  256. 

Poland,  94. 

Politeness,  462,  527. 

Political  Rest  and  Unrest,  473,  474, 

475. 
Polyandrian,  189. 
Polvdsemonism,  192. 
Polvo-aray,  267,  318,  436,  437. 
Polynesia,  100,  246,  247,  251,  257,  258, 

259,  261,  262,  263,  480. 
Polynesian  Language,  251,  252. 
Polytheism,  180,  191,  311,  468. 
Pondos,  455. 
Pongas,  447. 
Poona,  331. 
Poosas,  194. 

Pope,  202,  313,  451,  466,  470,  471. 
Porte,  376,  395  et  seq. 
Portugal,   443,  444,  451,   477,  499  et 

seq. 
Portuguese,   253,   266,   279,  305,  306, 

359,  435,  447,  451,  494  et  seq. 
Positivism,  351. 


Post,  231. 

Power,  Spiritual,  341,  344, 

Pra  Chaum  Klow,  268. 

Prague,  477. 

Prakrit,  305. 

Pratt,  423. 

Prayer,  44,  45,  46,  289,  315,  333,  334, 
'431,  515. 

Prayer  Book,  219,  256. 

Prayer  Meetings,  44,  45,  46,  344. 

Preaching,  200,  211,  212,  216. 

Preaching  with  sealed  lips,  126. 

Preempting  territory,  270,  271. 

Preexistence,  196. 

Preparation  for  Missionary  Labor, 
533. 

Preparations  for  Touring,  377,  378, 
379. 

Presbyterian  (American)  Missions,  54, 
56,  91,  93,  95,  127,  128,  151,  162, 
210,  211,  233,  236,  268,  269,  270, 
272,  281,  338,  361,  365,  417,  418, 
422,  523,  424,  426,  429,  431,  449, 
450,  468,  506,  507,  513. 

Presbyterian  ( Canadian )  Missions, 
2i9. 

Presbyterian  (Cumberland)  Missions, 
55. 

Presbyterian  (English)  Missions,  97, 
219,  281. 

Presbyteiian  (Irish)  Missions,  97,  219, 
332,  419. 

Presbyterian  (Scotch)  Missions,  97, 
266,  446,  477. 

Presbyterian,  United  (American)  ,Mis- 
'sions,  55,  338,  418,  429,  445. 

Presbyterian,  United  (Scotch),  Mis- 
sions, 220,  332,  450,  454,  457,  458, 
506. 

Present  Dispensation,  517. 

Press,  35,  153,  201,  210,  308,  338,  351, 
405,  412,  413,  424,  426,  463,  465, 
466,  468,  471,  477,  487,  514,  533. 

Primary  Object,  347. 

Prime, '540. 

Prison  Mission  Work,  282. 

Prohibition,  509. 

Prome  (Pri),  286,  297. 

Promises  of  God,  223. 

Propaganda,  99,  199,  412. 

Prophecy,  12,  374,  386,  388,  389,  514, 
516."ol7. 

Proselvtism,  188,  189,  198,  402. 

Protestant,-ism.  109,  246,  356,  413, 
414,  418,  452,  465,  466,  467,  468, 
470,471,  472,  475,  476,  478  et  seq., 
494,  495,  497,  500,  502,  503,  541. 

Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  330. 

Protestant  Europe,  431,  478  et  seq. 

Protestant  Missions,-aries,  99, 199,203, 
253,  278,  279,  330,  342,  408,  446, 
460,  580,  510. 


INDEX. 


577 


PKO 


ROM 


Protestants,  36,  38,  39,  40,  42,  92,  94, 
95,  98,  99,  100,  201,  202,  209,  247, 
289,  321,  322,  327,  358,  431,  450, 
451. 

"  Protestants  of  the  East,"  410. 

Protoplasm,  351. 

Providence,  16,  222,  298,  318,  335,  343, 
404,  405,  443,  447,  452,  454,  457, 
459,  462,  489,  495.  500,  503,  516, 
525,  529. 

Providence,  Mistaken  Views,  225,  227. 

Ptolemaic,  434. 
Ptolemies,  34. 
Ptolemy,  440. 

Publication  Societies,  210. 

Punjab,   or   Punjaub,  329,  338,  357, 

446. 
Punjabi,  308,  309. 
Purgatory,  470. 
Puritans,  495. 
Pushtu,  372. 

Pyramid,  248,  391. 
Pyrenees,  318. 
Pythagoras,  312,  434. 


Q. 

Quackery,  229. 

Quakers'  Missions.     See  Friends. 
"  Quakers  of  the  East,"  408. 
Qualifications  for  Missionaries,  21, 533, 

534. 
Quality  of  Converts,  334. 
Quebec,  508. 
Queensland,  247. 

Question  for  Christian  Homes,  533. 
Question  for  Christian  Teachers,  533. 

Rachel,  389. 
Railway,  115,  315. 

Rajag-riha,  187. 

Rajpootana,  332. 

Rale,  496. 

Ramahyuk,  252,  253. 

Ramapatam,  334. 

Ramayana,  315. 

Rameses  II.,  391,  432. 

Ramoth  Gilead,  420. 

Ran  Chunder  Bose,  347. 

Rangoon,  271,  284,  285,  286,  288,  290, 

291,  292,  293,  295,  296,  297,  299, 

470. 
Rapa,  261. 
Rassam,  388. 
Rationalism,  320,  351,  360,  486,  488, 

490,  491. 
Ravanas,  305. 
Rawlinson,  358. 


Rebekah,  389. 

Rebmann,  439,  456. 

Recipx-ocity  of  Prot.  Nations,  489. 

Reckless  piety,  225. 

Red  Sea,  356. 

Reflex  of  Foreign  Missions,  488. 

Reformation,  185. 

Reformed  Church  Missions,  55,  127, 

128,  219. 
Reformed  Churches,  Germany,  487» 
Reichstag,  501. 

Reinforcement  of  Missions,  281. 
Relief  funds,  236. 
Religions  of  China,  168  et  seq. 
Religious  Liberty,  477,  506. 
Renan,  351. 
Republican,  50. 
Rescht,  365. 

Reserved  talent,  415,  416. 
Reserves  for  advance,  300. 
Residency  at  Baghdad,  376. 
Resources  for  Missions,  340. 
Responsibility  of  ministers,  511,  520, 

525,  532. 
Restorationism,  237. 
Retrenchment,  296,  352,  353. 
Retribution,  278. 
Revelation,  186. 
Revival,  222. 

Revival  Religious  life,  Europe,  487. 
Revivals,  how  to  secure,  537. 
Rhei,  365. 

Rheinish  Mission,  97,  220,  258,  452. 
Rhenius,  322. 
Rhode  Island,  499,  529. 
"  Rice  christians,"  333. 
Rice  planting,  127. 
Riggs,  70,  423. 
Rig-Veda,  186,  311. 
Rio  Grande,  496. 
Ritual,  200,  486. 
Robert  College,  405,  422. 
Rocky  Mountains,  47. 
Rohilkhund,  95. 
Roman,  -s,  186,  357,  406  434. 
Roman  Catholic,  260,  265,  277,  409, 

412,  417,  446,  451,  466,  467,  468, 

470,  471,  476,  491,  494,  495  et  seq. 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  14,  36,  39,  40, 

56,  99,  100,  172,  193,  200,  201,  247, 

267,  279,  319,  408,  410,  450,  464, 

465,  466,  472,  473,  495,  et  seq. 
Roman  Catholic  missionaries,  193, 199, 

200,  201,  202,  233,  244,  341,  342, 

495  et  seq. 
Roman  Catholic  Missions,   106,   138, 

199,  201,  207,  279,  314,  356,  370, 

407,  476,  495  et  seq. 
Roman  Catholic  trial  in  New  World, 

495. 
"Romance    of  Missions,"  293,   295, 

326. 


578  INDEX. 

ROM 

Romanized  letters,  235. 
Roman  power,  26,  432. 
Rome,  143,  173,  313,  385,  407,431,463, 

466,  469. 
Rosary,  193. 
Rose,  297. 

Rotterdam,  97,  98,  249. 
Rouches,  254. 
Roumania,  395. 
Roumelia  (Eastern),  424. 
"  Round  the  World  Letters,"  73,  145. 
Rouse,  331. 

Rubaga,  459. 

Rumelians,  425. 

Runjeet  Sing,  446. 

Rurutu,  260. 

Russell,  217,  387. 

Russia,  93,  94,  287,  358,  359,  399,  400, 
401,  403,  407,  442,  465,  466,  468, 
469,  470,  471,  472,  474,  476,  479, 
481,  501. 

Russian,  308,  361,  364,  393. 


S. 

Sabbath,  35,  40. 

Sacrifice,  289,  290,  291,  404,  497. 

Sacrifice,  human,  262,  359,  438, 

539. 
Sacrifices,  535. 
Sadowa,  465, 
Ssebsenan,  317. 
Sagar,  338. 
Saharah,  435. 
Said,  456. 
Said  Burgash,  456. 
Saigon,  265,  266. 
Sailors,  29,  30,  216,  323. 
Saint  of  Rome,  193. 
Saints,  471. 

St.  Denis,  469. 

St.  Helena,  461. 

St.  Nicholas,  473. 

St.  Paul  (Africa),  451. 

St.  Paul's,  385. 

St.  Peter's,  173,  385,  469,  470. 

St.  Petersburg,  93,  359,  463. 

St.  Philip  de  B.,  451. 

St.  Sophia,  392,  393,  429. 

St.  Stephen's,  469. 

St.  Vincent,  506. 

Saktas,  316. 

Sakya,  190,  193. 

Saladin,  426. 

Salonica,  401. 

'« Salvas,"  495. 

Salwin,  283. 

Samaguting,  301. 

Samarang,  249,  250. 

Samaria,  143. 

Samaritanism,  428. 


Samoa,  259. 

Samokov,  429. 

Samurai,  104,  105. 

Sanctification,  221,  228. 

Sanda,  450. 

Sandhlwana,  436. 

Sandwich  Islands,  87,  88,  91,  138,  252, 

257,  343,  538,  539. 
San  Francisco,  36,  47,  54,  59,  66,  378, 

483. 
Sanitary  Commission,  430. 
San-Khya-Karika,  312. 
Sankvaism,  190. 
San  Salvador,  450,  451,  494. 
Sanskrit  (Sanscrit),  186,  305,  311. 
Sanskrit  literature,  315. 
Santa  C'ruz,  263. 
Santa],  331. 
Saracen,  436. 
Sara-dau-gyec,  285. 
Sardanapalus    (see  Asshur-bani-pal), 

388,  389. 
Sargon,  143. 
Satsuma,  105. 
Saturn,  180. 
Saxony,  254. 
Scandal,  205,  206. 

Scandinavia,  -n,  99,  476,  484,  488,  489. 
Scarabaei,  434. 
Scepticism,  320,  350,  351. 
Schaff,  319,  404,  434,  489. 
Schauffler,  423. 
Schenkel,  488. 
Schereschewsky,  218. 
Schiller,  478. 
Schmidt,  254. 

Schools,  high  and  elementary,  356. 
Schou,  490. 
Science,  320,  328,  346,  347,  420,  479, 

516. 
Science,  Medical,  230,  231. 
Science  of  Missions,  16,  516,  536. 
Scotch,   199,  285,  331,  333,  478,  481, 

486. 
Scotch  Reformed  Church,  457. 
Scotch  U.  P.  Ch.,  97.      See  Presby- 
terian. 
Scotland,  331,  428,  458,  488,  489. 
Scott,  219,  338. 

Scottish  Kirk,  96,  271,  331,  487. 
Scottish  Kirk  Missions,  331,  457,  468, 

506. 
Scott,  W.,  478. 
Scutari,  429. 
Scythia,  171. 
Sealkote,  338. 
Sebastopol,  357. 
Second  Advent,  516. 
Secretary  of  Mission  Society,  530, 831. 
Sects,  471. 
Secundra,  355. 
Sedan,  474. 


INDEX. 


579 


SEI 


SOM 


Seir,  361. 

Seleucia,  376,  381. 

Selfishness,   191,   194,   195,   196,   197, 

275,  285,  332,  385,  386,  500. 
Self-reliance,  524. 
Self-sacrifice,  448. 
Self-support,   78,   136,   241,  244,  299, 

300,  331,  404,  420,  421,  455,  506. 
Selim,  393. 
Seljuk,  392. 
Semiramis,  439. 
Se'nart,  190. 
Senegal,  446. 

Sennacherib,  142,  386,  387,  388,  389. 
Sepoy,  306. 
Septuagint,  434. 
Serampore,  65,  79,  95,  307,  322,  323, 

324,  329,  348,  351,  361. 
Serapenum,  391. 
Serapis,  433. 
Serfage,  498. 
Serfdom,  251. 

Serfs,  liberation  of,  442,  474. 
Serf  (So.  America),  499,  501. 
Servia,  395. 
Sesnah,  371. 
Sesostris,  391,  432. 
Seu-kia-wei,  202. 
Seu-kwang-ke,  200. 
Seward,  G.  H.,  63,  151. 
Seychelles,  461. 

Shadrach,  M.  and  A.,  386. 

Shah,  365,  266. 

Shah  Jehan,  306,  310. 

Shakespeare,  478. 

Shakyamuni,  188,  194. 

Shalmaneser,  143,  388. 

Shang  Dynasty,  143. 

Shanghai",  7'6,  142,  144,  145,  146,  158, 
164,  183,  199,  202,  210,  213,  215, 
216,  218,  233,  241,  244,  344. 

Shang-ti,  169,  171,  172,  173,  181,  188, 
192. 

Shans,*'271,  284,  288,  295,  300. 

Shan-si,  160,  232. 

Shan-tung,  151,  211,  216,  219. 

Sharp,  500. 

Shastres,  350. 

Shat-el-Arab,  379. 

Sheba,  378. 

Shedd,  366. 

Sheikhees,  367. 

Shelden,  292. 

Shemitic,  Semitic,  171,  252,  372,  381. 

Sheng  Ling,  219. 

Shen-si,  160,  232. 

Sherman,  68. 

Shen-ing,  322,  327. 

Shia,  360,  367,  368. 

Shikoko,  105. 

Shimabai-a,  105,  111. 


Shimonoseki,  112. 

Shin,  172,  173. 

Shinar,  344. 

Shing-king,  220. 

Shintooism,  10«,  119, 189, 190, 198. 

Shintoos,  100,  464. 

Shiraz,  358,  361. 

Shire',  457. 

Shiro,  103. 

Shoenbi-un,  70. 

Shogun,  106,  107, 156. 

Shushan,  380. 

Shway-Dagon,  288,  470. 

Siam,  140,  189,  192. 

Siamese,  267,  269,  272,  273,  274,  275, 

276. 
Siberia,  87,  94. 
Sibsagor,  301. 
Siddhartha,   186,   187,   188,  189,  190, 

193,  265,  302. 
Sidney,  247,  251. 
Sidon,  378,  429. 
Sien-a  Leone,  439,  447. 
Sierra  Xevadas,  47. 
Sikhs,  249,  338. 
Sima  Islands,  103. 
Simpson,  508. 
Sinai,  374,  390. 
Sin  (Buddhistic  idea),  196. 
Sindhi,  308. 
Singapore,  244,  258,  264,  272,  273,  281, 

282,  376. 
Singhalese,  303,  308,  309. 
Sinim,  208. 
Sinoris,  445. 

Sisters  of  Mercy,  201,  207. 
Siva,  315,  316. 

Slanders,  concerning  missionaries,  74, 

75,  76,  130,  258. 
Slavery,  241,  242,  267,  318,  436,  437, 

441,  442,  443,  444,  499,  500,  501, 

505    513 
Slavonic,  305,  360,  463. 

Smith,   292,  388,  423,  425,  427,  497, 

515. 
Smyi-na,  410,  518. 

Snow,  92. 

Sobieski,  393. 

Societe  Evangelique,  472. 

S.  P.  G.  Missions,  96,  98,  219,  257, 
258,  270,  271,  281,  296,  329,  330, 
419,   453,  460,  461,  485,  506,  508. 

Society  Islands,  252. 

Sodo,  105. 

Soliciting  Agency,  226,  227,  275. 

Soliman,  393. 

Solo,  249. 

Solomon,  171,  263. 

Somali,  456. 

Somdetya  Chowfa,  267,  268. 


580 


INDEX. 


SOM 


TAJ 


Somnifernm,  160. 

Song,  219,  354,  355,  457. 

Song-Ka,  266. 

Sorcery,  188,  229. 

Soudan,  435,  437,  452,  458. 

Sourabaya,  250. 

Sources  of  Mission  Information,  533. 

So.  Australia,  247. 

So.  Carolina,  449. 

Southern  Sentiment,  48,  52,  53. 

So.  Pacific,  251,  252,  253,  257. 

Spain,  38,  343,  427,  434,  443,  465,  472, 

475,  477,  479,  496,  497  et  seq. 
Spaniards,  496,  498. 
Spanish,  246,  447,  477,  483,  494  et  seq. 
Spanish  American,  499,  501. 
Spauldiug,  70. 
Specific  Donations,  525. 
Speculation,  54,  66,  67. 
Speke,  441. 
Spencer,  351. 
Spirit,  172. 
Spirit  Money,  241. 
Spiritual  Power,  45,  46. 
Spurgeon,  478. 

S  *ruti  Anusravika,  312. 

Stage,  487. 

Stamboul,  424. 

Stanhope,  500. 

Stanley,  53,  439,  441,  442,  450,  459. 

Stanley  Pool,  450. 

Stanton,  510. 

Statesmanship,   50,  63,  65,  308,  401, 

453,  481,  500. 
Statesmen,  349,  465,  502. 
Statistics,  208,  238,  255,  304,  329,  330, 

331,  388,  418,  424,  453,  454,  492, 

493,  506,  507,  508,  519. 
Steere,  458,  459. 
Steinmeyer,  489. 
Stevens,  297. 
Stewart,  455. 
Stockholm,  93. 
Storm,  severe,  529. 
Strasburg  Cathedral,  385. 
Strategy  in  Missions,  363. 
Strauss,  351. 
Stundisti,  471. 
Sturgess,  92. 
Styx,  434. 
"  Suahil,"  456,  459. 
Subsidies,  34. 
Substitution,  113, 
Su-chow,  148,  150,  158,  210,  215. 
Suddhodhana,  187,  190. 
Sudras,  312,  313,  330,  334. 
Suffrage,  50. 
Sufis,  360,  367. 
Suicide,  522. 
Sultan,   317,  328,  365,  398,  402,  403. 

424,  429. 


Sumatra,  246,  248,  249,  250,  257,  258, 

264. 
Sunday,  85,  202,  232,   233,  458,  508, 

532  535. 
Sunday'  School,  40,  212,  222,  233,  234, 

289,  472,  517,  532. 
Sunday  School  Union,  56. 
Sung  Dynasty,  143,  157. 
Sun-god  (Veclic),  187,  190,  193. 
"  Sunna,"  318. 
Siinni,  360,  367. 
Sunstroke,  522. 
Superstition,  174,  175,   183,  188,  190, 

192,  193,  229,  230,  240,  241,  251, 

256,  295,  317,  327,  345,  350,  496, 

503,  515,  518. 
Support  of  Returned  Missionaries,  523, 

524. 
Sura,  1st  of  Koran,  319. 
Surinam,  255,  506. 
"  Survival  of  the  Fittest,"  40. 
Susiana,  380,  387. 
Sustentatiou  Fund,  537. 

Swatow,  140,  144,  152,  211,  212,  219, 
243. 

Sweden,  98,  488,  490. 
Swedish  Fosterlaud  Inst.,  338,  456. 
Swiss  Protestants,  98. 
Switzerland,  221,  439,  463,  510. 

Sympathy,  195,  272,  275,  289,  462. 
Synodal  Zendingscom,  Z.-A.,  453. 
Syracuse,  143. 
Syria,  338,  375,  376,  377,  393,  394,  414, 

418,  419,  423,  425. 
Syriac,  361,  408. 
Syriac  Bible,  320. 
Syrian,  231,  356,  357,  358,  407. 
Syrian  Catholics,  408,  412. 
""Syrian  Ch.  of  Malabar,"  319,  329, 

409. 
Syrian    Missions  (British),  272,  418, 

420. 
Syrian  Protestant  College,  405,  418, 

422  423. 
Syrians!  409,  445. 
Syro-Arabians,  435. 
System  in  giving,  331,  535. 

Szchuen,  232. 

T. 

Tablet,  ancestral,  182. 

Tabriz,  358,  361,  366,  368. 

Tahiti,  252,  259,  260,  261,  290,  515, 

539. 
Tai-hu,  159. 
Taiko-Sama,  106. 
Taiping  rebellion,  64,  139,  145,  150, 

155. 
Taiwan,  144. 
Taj,  310,  311,  356. 


TAK 

Takao,  144. 

Taku,  146. 

Talings,  300. 

Tamerlane,  306,  376. 

Tamil,  305,  308,  309,  329. 

Tanganyika,  439,  441,  451,  457,  458. 

T'aug  Dynasty,  143. 

Tantras,  316. 

Taou,  180. 

Taouism,  180,  181,  182,  185,  188. 

Taouist,  170,  174. 

Taouists,  100,  174,  177,  183. 

Tartar  Manchus,   64,   155,  239,   240, 

243. 
Tartars,  158,  376,  425,  469. 
Tartary,  142,  201,  203, 
Tasmania,  247. 
Tavoy,  287. 
Taylor,  222,  227,  228,  486,  489. 

Tea,  151. 

Tears,  390,  391. 

Teheran,  358,  361,  364,  365,  366,  371. 

TeluiTu,  305,  308,  309,  313,  329,  333, 

334,  355,  513. 
Temperance  reform,  28,  318,  454,  509. 
Temple  Church,  478,  484. 
Temple  of  Heaven,  108,  169,  170,  173. 
Temples,  288,  303. 
Temptations  of  missionaries,  237,  293, 

345. 
Tenasserim,  287,  300,  355. 
Tennessee,  449. 
Ten  Tribes,  372. 
Terra  del  Fuego,  253,  496. 
Testimony  of  Travellers,  538. 
Teutonic,*  305,  381,  452,  463,  489. 

Theban,  433. 

Thebes,  391. 

Theism,  187,  188,  191,  328. 

Theos,  172,  173. 

Tholuck,  488. 

Thomas,  290,  292,  338,  409. 

Thomas  a  Kempis,  309. 

Thomas,  Apostle,  319. 

Thompson,  218,  418. 

Thurston,  91. 

Tibet,  142,  191,  192,  203,  232,  255,  267, 

300,  338. 
Tiele,  186,  190. 
Tien-chu,  172,  173,  219. 
Tien-chu-kan,  172. 
Tientsin,  64,  65,    144,   155,  202,  215, 

216,  231. 
Tiflis,  476. 
Tiglathpileser,  388. 
Tigris,  344,  360,  376,  379,  387,  406, 

407,  409,  431. 
Tinnevelly,  95,  322,  329,  330,  513. 

Tokaido,  105,  115. 
Tokelav,  259. 


INDEX.  581 

TUE 

Tokio,  103,  104, 110, 115,  120,  128,  137, 

138,  147,  153,  470,  480. 
Tokogawa,  112. 
Toleration,   religious,    266,  268,  366, 

402,  460,  479. 
Toltecs,  494. 

Tongan  Islands,  252,  260. 
Tonquin,  264,  266. 
Topographv,  374. 
Total  abstinence,  28,  429,  509. 
Tourists,  510. 
Tours,  393. 
Towers  of  Silence,  319. 

Tract  Societies,  210,  351. 

Trade,  balance  of,  25. 

Tradition,  186,  187,  295. 

Training  schools,  51. 

Trajan,  357. 

Transkei,  455. 

Translation,  127,  202,  234,  235,  294, 

297,  405,  422,  456,  514. 
Transmigration,  187,  189,  197. 
Transvaal,  445,  452. 
Travancore,  319,  322,  329,  331,  409. 
Travel,  liberty  of,  203. 
Travelling  expenses,  523. 
Travel,  modes  of,  117,  149. 
Travesty  on  Faith,  226. 
Treasurer  of  Miss.  Soc,  530,  531. 
Treatv  with  China,  63. 
Trebizond,  417. 
Trials    of   missionaries,   11,   14,   111, 

126,  127,  325,  515,  516. 
Tribe  system,  456. 
Ti-ichotomy,  180. 
Trieste,  518. 
Trinidad,  506. 
Trinitv,  180. 

Tripoli,  418,  429,  442,  446. 
Trollope,  455. 
Tropics,  273. 
Trust  funds,  349,  421. 

Tsien-tang,  158. 
Tsirasheans,  508. 
Tsin  Dynasty,  143. 
Ts'ing  Dynasty,  144. 
Tskiji,  ll4. 
Tsugaru,  103. 

Tung-chow  (Tung-cho),  216,  217. 
Tung-chow-fu  (Tung-chau),  151,  210, 

211,  213. 
Tunis,  446,  474. 
Tunisians,  425. 
Tura,  301. 
Turanian,  305. 
Turcomans,  358,  360,  364. 
Turiano.  260. 
Turkestan,  3-57. 
Turkev,  229, 317,  328.  384,  392  et  seq., 

412   et  seq.,  468,  475.  480. 
Turkish,  230,  368,  376,  392  et  seq. 


582 


INDEX. 


TUB 


WEB 


Turks,  306,  358, 365,  377, 392,  et  seq., 

481. 
Turon,  266. 

Tycoon  (Taiktin),  107. 
Tyndall,  351. 
Tyre,  305,  378,  432. 
Tyrol,  463. 

U. 

Uganda,  439,  441,  442, 459. 

Ugogo,  457. 
XJguha,  458. 

Ujiji,  458. 

Ukerewe,  441,  459. 

Ultramontanism,  465. 
Ulunda,  451. 

Umzila,  454. 

Unappreciated  work,  515,  516. 

Undenominational,  209. 

Underbill,  500. 

Unemployed  Reserves,  41. 

Uniformity,  56. 

Unitarian,' 83,  84,  114. 

"  Unitas  Fratrum,"  256. 

United  Metli.  F.  Ch.  Missions,  458, 

506. 
United  States,  32,  49,  51,  68,  93,  246, 

304,  443,  468,  482,  495,  501,  505. 
United  States  Constitution,  499. 
United  States  (So.),  498. 
Unity,  31,  43,  53,  120,  137,  210,  218, 

244,  269,  289,  314,  461,  471,  489, 

526. 
Universal  Church,  32,  106,  290,  296, 

301,  345,  390,  459,  508. 
Universal  Missions,  24,  509. 
University  Missions,  96,  457,  458. 
University  of  Cairo  (Moslem),  436. 
Unlooked-for  fruit,  90. 
Unmarried  female  missionaries,  206, 

207,  208,  339. 
Unmarried    male    missionaries,    205, 

206. 
Unoccupied  Mission  Fields,  265,  267. 
Unrest  (So.  America),  502. 
Unselfishness,  194,  196. 
Unwritten  Language,  463. 
Unwritten  Law,  62. 
Unyanyembe,  458 

Urambo,  458. 
Urdu,  425. 
Uruguay,  502,  507. 

Usefulness   of    missionary    invalids, 

373 
Usertesen  II.,  432. 
Usugara,  459. 
Usukunia,  439. 

Utali,47. 


Utrecht,  496. 
Utrechtsche,  97. 


Vaal  river,  453. 

Vacations  for  missionaries,  122,  518, 

524. 
Vaisyas,  187,  312,  313,  314. 
Valuable  Testimony,  539. 
Van  Dyck,  423,  425. 
Vansomeren,  282. 
Varanasi,  194. 
Vasco  di  Gama,  305. 
Vatican,  450,  464,  466,  473,  474, 496, 

et  seq. 

Veda,  189,  311,  312. 

Vedic,   186,   187,   189,  192,   193,  311, 

328. 
Vellama,  330. 
Vendidad  Sade',  319. 
Venice,  305. 
"  Venice  of  East,"  267. 
Venn,  450,  486. 
Venus,  180. 
Veran  Sheraz,  389. 
Vernacular,  320. 
Vesuvius,  463. 
Veterans,  137. 

Vibhishanas,  305. 

Victoria,  247. 

Victoria  (N.  A.),  508,  509. 

Victoria  Nyanza,  439,  441,  442,  458, 

459. 
Vienna,  254,  393,  469,  488. 
Village  churches,  31,  32. 
Village  work,  356. 
Vindhva,  306. 
Vinton,  292,  293. 
Virginia,  449. 
Virgin  Mary,  56,  193,  200,  202,  433, 

470. 
Vischer,  440. 
Vishnu,  189,  315,  468. 
Vizagapatam,  327. 

Vladimir,  469. 

Volkner,  256. 

Von  Zinzendorf,  254,  255. 

TV. 

Wade,  292. 

Wade,  Sir  Thomas,  148. 

Waldenses,  465,  472. 

Wallace.  469,  471. 

Wan-chow,  144. 

Ward,  79,  289,  307.  322,  324,  331. 

War,  a  justifiable,  287,  288. 

Washington  Capitol,  385. 

Waswahili,  458. 

Waterloo  Plain,  249. 


Week  of  Prayer,  536. 


WEL 

Welcome  home,  chilled,  521. 

Wellesley  Province,  282. 

Wen-li,  219,  235. 

Wesley,  185,  517. 

Wesleyans,  95,  97,  138,  217,  247,  256, 
257,  260,  262,  270,  328,  331,  446, 
448,  449,  454,  477,  506,  508. 

West,  33. 

West  Australia,  247. 

"Western  Heaven,"  188. 

West  Indies,  160,  246,  255,  437,  480, 
494   et  seq. 

West  Indies  (British),  443,  447. 

West  Griqualand,  454. 

Westminster  Abbey,  478,  484. 

Whately,  429. 
"  White  Clergy,"  465. 
White  elephants,  Siam,  275. 
Whitman,  70. 

Widows  of  missionaries,  523. 

Wilberforce,  447,  500,  515. 

Wilkes,  539. 

Williams,  137,  263. 

Williams  (Oxford),  186,  311,  314,  320. 

Williamson,  70,  219. 

Wilson,  190,  322,  331,  332,  438. 

Wimmeria,  252. 

Windsor,  478. 

Witchcraft,  176. 

Woman's    Indus.    Refuge    (Beirut), 

419. 
Woman's  Societies,  56,  299,  429,  430. 
Women  missionai-ies,  535. 
Women  missionaries,  single,  56,  57, 

58,  206,  207,  208,  429,  430. 
Women  physicians,  231. 
Woon-douk,  285. 
Woon-gyees,  285. 
Worcester,  70. 

Work  of  Holy  Spirit,  126,  517. 
**  Work  season,"  520. 
World  a  neighborhood,  102. 
World  Conquest,  13,  22,  23,  56,  516, 

517. 
World  Field,  99,  100,  517. 
World  Religions,  517,  518. 
Worship  of  evil  spirits,  191,  295. 

Wright,  70. 

Wu-chang,  151,  218,  226,  270. 
Wu-hu,  144. 

Wybei'g,  490. 
Wyoming,  47,  68. 


INDEX.  583 

ZUL 
X. 

Xavier,  Francis,  105,  106,  278,  2791 
Xerxes,  357,  386. 

Y. 


144,  148, 151, 152, 


Yakub  Khan,  370. 
Yama,  197. 
Yang-chow,  232. 
Yang-tse,  64,  142, 

158,  216. 
Yates,  183,  213. 

Yedo,  103,  106. 
Yeh,  287. 
YeUow  Sea,  162. 
Yen,  218. 
Yen-lo-wang,  197. 
Yezbeks,  425. 
Yezo,  103. 

Yokohama,  76,  122,  128,  137,  270,  323, 

344. 
Yoni,  315,  316. 
Yoritomo,  106. 
Yoruba,  440,  449,  461. 
Young  Men's  Christian  Associations, 

42,  43,  44,  56. 

Yu,  143. 

Yung-kan,  183. 
Yun-nan,  232,  266. 

Z. 

Zambezi,  435,  437,  439,  451,  452,  454, 

457. 
Zanzibar,  435,  442,  443,  444,  456,  457, 

458,  459,  460,  480. 
Zanzibarians,  425. 
Zao-hving,  or  Shau-hing,  143, 148, 158, 

213. 

Zeisburger,  254. 

Zenana  Missions,  336,  430. 

Zend,  305. 

Zendingsvereeniging  (N.),  97. 

Zephaniah,  388. 

Zeus,  172. 

Ziegenbalg,  99. 

Zobeida,  376. 
Zornitza  (weeklv),  424. 
Zoroaster,  174,  l85,  306,  312,  357. 

Zulus,  435,  436.  445.  454.  455. 


**tSJ^txt  temainetfi  ^tt  berg  tnticfj  lanlJ  to  bt  possessed." 
Josh,  xiii,  1. 


'^,'.','?£^f,?"   Theological  Semi 


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